Abstract
Baryon number conservation is not guaranteed by any fundamental symmetry within the standard model, and therefore has been a subject of experimental and theoretical scrutiny for decades. So ...far, no evidence for baryon number violation has been observed. Large underground detectors have long been used for both neutrino detection and searches for baryon number violating processes. The next generation of large neutrino detectors will seek to improve upon the limits set by past and current experiments and will cover a range of lifetimes predicted by several Grand Unified Theories. In this White Paper, we summarize theoretical motivations and experimental aspects of searches for baryon number violation in neutrino experiments.
Background: Supplementation of grazing cattle with native and naturalized forages using silvopastoral systems has been suggested as an affordable strategy to reduce methane production and improve ...nutrition, diminishing the environmental impact of cattle production. Objective: To evaluate the effect of three tropical forage species in a silvopastoral arrangement on methane production and fermentation parameters using an in vitro ruminal simulation system (RUSITEC). Methods: Four diets were evaluated. The control treatment was a basal diet of colosuana grass (COL; Bothriochloa pertusa), while the other diets consisted of 70% COL complemented with 30% shrub forage from either Leucaena leucocephala (CL), Guazuma ulmifolia (CG), or Crescentia cujete (CT). A randomized complete block design with repeated measurements over time was used. Results: The inclusion of shrub forage did not affect pH, organic matter degradation (OMD) or volatile fatty acids (VFA). The inclusion of shrub forage affected the degradation of structural components. The concentration of N-NH3 increased in the CL diet compared to COL (p<0.05). In general, methane production in terms of mL/day, mL/g DMi, mL/g DMd, and mL/gOMd was reduced for CL compared to COL (p<0.05). Conclusions: Based on these results, inclusion of Leucaena leucocephala, Guazuma ulmifolia or Crescentia cujete on B. pertusa-based diets improves ruminal fermentation parameters and reduces in vitro methane production.
In order to extract neutrino oscillation parameters, long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments rely on detailed models of neutrino interactions with nuclei. These models constitute an important ...source of systematic uncertainty, partially because detectors to date have been blind to final state neutrons. Three-dimensional projection scintillator trackers comprise components of the near detectors of the next generation long-baseline neutrino experiments. Due to the good timing resolution and fine granularity, this technology is capable of measuring neutron kinetic energy in neutrino interactions on an event-by-event basis and will provide valuable data for refining neutrino interaction models and ways to reconstruct neutrino energy. Two prototypes have been exposed to the neutron beamline at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in both 2019 and 2020, with neutron energies between 0 and 800 MeV. In order to demonstrate the capability of neutron detection, the total neutron-scintillator cross section as a function of neutron energy is measured and compared to external measurements. The measured total neutron cross section in scintillator between 98 and 688 MeV is 0.36 ± 0.05 barn.
Abstract
Wire-Cell is a 3D event reconstruction package for liquid
argon time projection chambers. Through geometry, time, and drifted
charge from multiple readout wire planes, 3D space points with
...associated charge are reconstructed prior to the pattern recognition
stage. Pattern recognition techniques, including track trajectory
and d
Q
/d
x
(ionization charge per unit length) fitting, 3D neutrino
vertex fitting, track and shower separation, particle-level
clustering, and particle identification are then applied on these 3D
space points as well as the original 2D projection measurements. A
deep neural network is developed to enhance the reconstruction of
the neutrino interaction vertex. Compared to traditional
algorithms, the deep neural network boosts the vertex efficiency by
a relative 30% for charged-current ν
e
interactions. This
pattern recognition achieves 80–90% reconstruction efficiencies
for primary leptons, after a 65.8% (72.9%) vertex efficiency for
charged-current ν
e
(ν
μ
) interactions. Based on the
resulting reconstructed particles and their kinematics, we also
achieve 15-20% energy reconstruction resolutions for
charged-current neutrino interactions.
Abstract
The MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) maintains a high level of liquid argon purity through the use of a filtration system that removes electronegative contaminants in ...continuously-circulated liquid, recondensed boil off, and externally supplied argon gas. We use the MicroBooNE LArTPC to reconstruct MeV-scale radiological decays. Using this technique we measure the liquid argon filtration system's efficacy at removing radon. This is studied by placing a 500 kBq
222
Rn source upstream of the filters and searching for a time-dependent increase in the number of radiological decays in the LArTPC. In the context of two models for radon mitigation via a liquid argon filtration system, a slowing mechanism and a trapping mechanism, MicroBooNE data supports a radon reduction factor of greater than 97% or 99.999%, respectively. Furthermore, a radiological survey of the filters found that the copper-based filter material was the primary medium that removed the
222
Rn. This is the first observation of radon mitigation in liquid argon with a large-scale copper-based filter and could offer a radon mitigation solution for future large LArTPCs.
Abstract
In this article, we describe a modified implementation of Mask Region-based Convolutional Neural Networks (Mask-RCNN) for cosmic ray muon clustering in a liquid argon TPC and applied to ...MicroBooNE neutrino data. Our implementation of this network, called sMask-RCNN, uses sparse submanifold convolutions to increase processing speed on sparse datasets, and is compared to the original dense version in several metrics. The networks are trained to use wire readout images from the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber as input and produce individually labeled particle interactions within the image. These outputs are identified as either cosmic ray muon or electron neutrino interactions. We find that sMask-RCNN has an average pixel clustering efficiency of 85.9% compared to the dense network's average pixel clustering efficiency of 89.1%. We demonstrate the ability of sMask-RCNN used in conjunction with MicroBooNE's state-of-the-art Wire-Cell cosmic tagger to veto events containing only cosmic ray muons. The addition of sMask-RCNN to the Wire-Cell cosmic tagger removes 70% of the remaining cosmic ray muon background events at the same electron neutrino event signal efficiency. This event veto can provide 99.7% rejection of cosmic ray-only background events while maintaining an electron neutrino event-level signal efficiency of 80.1%. In addition to cosmic ray muon identification, sMask-RCNN could be used to extract features and identify different particle interaction types in other 3D-tracking detectors.
The sensitivity of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to neutrino oscillation is determined, based on a full simulation, reconstruction, and event selection of the far detector and a ...full simulation and parameterized analysis of the near detector. Detailed uncertainties due to the flux prediction, neutrino interaction model, and detector effects are included. DUNE will resolve the neutrino mass ordering to a precision of 5
σ
, for all
δ
CP
values, after 2 years of running with the nominal detector design and beam configuration. It has the potential to observe charge-parity violation in the neutrino sector to a precision of 3
σ
(5
σ
) after an exposure of 5 (10) years, for 50% of all
δ
CP
values. It will also make precise measurements of other parameters governing long-baseline neutrino oscillation, and after an exposure of 15 years will achieve a similar sensitivity to
sin
2
2
θ
13
to current reactor experiments.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We present a search for the decays of a neutral scalar boson produced by kaons decaying at rest, in the context of the Higgs portal model, using the MicroBooNE detector. We analyze data triggered in ...time with the Fermilab NuMI neutrino beam spill, with an exposure of 1020 protons on target. We look for monoenergetic scalars that come from the direction of the NuMI hadron absorber, at a distance of 100 m from the detector, and decay to electron-positron pairs. We observe one candidate event, with a standard model background prediction of 1.9±0.8. We set an upper limit on the scalar–Higgs mixing angle of θ<(3.3−4.6)×10−4 at the 95% confidence level for scalar boson masses in the range(100–200) MeV/c2. We exclude, at the 95% confidence level, the remaining model parameters required to explain the central value of a possible excess of KL0→π0νν¯ decays reported by the KOTO collaboration. We also provide a model-independent limit on a new boson X produced in K→πX decays and decaying to e+e−.
Splanchnic venous thrombosis refers to the obstructive events of the abdominal venous system (portal, splenic, mesenteric, and suprahepatic) present with or without an underlying liver disease. These ...are rare disorders generally associated with both local risk factors, such as intra-abdominal infections, surgery or abdominal trauma, and systemic risk factors, represented by drugs (notably estrogen therapy) and some types of inherited or acquired thrombophilia, including myeloproliferative neoplasms associated with the V617F mutation of the JAK2 gene. The clinical presentation is heterogeneous, ranging from asymptomatic patients with incidental findings on abdominopelvic imaging to severe systemic compromise in sudden onset cases, with a high morbidity and mortality burden. Anticoagulation therapy is the current recommended treatment based on observational studies, with no consensus on management in the acute and long-term setting for both inmediate complications such as acute liver failure and intestinal ischemia or those arising from secondary portal hypertension over a longer period of time.