The AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) is a CERN based experiment with the central aim to measure directly the gravitational acceleration of antihydrogen. ...Antihydrogen atoms will be produced via charge exchange reactions which will consist of Rydberg-excited positronium atoms sent to cooled antiprotons within an electromagnetic trap. The resulting Rydberg antihydrogen atoms will then be horizontally accelerated by an electric field gradient (Stark effect), they will then pass through a moiré deflectometer. The vertical deflection caused by the Earth's gravitational field will test for the first time the Weak Equivalence Principle for antimatter. Detection will be undertaken via a position sensitive detector. Around 103 antihydrogen atoms are needed for the gravitational measurement to be completed. The present status, current achievements and results will be presented, with special attention toward the laser excitation of positronium (Ps) to the n=3 state and the production of Ps atoms in the transmission geometry.
3D-FBK pixel sensors: Recent beam tests results with irradiated devices Micelli, A.; Helle, K.; Sandaker, H. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
09/2011, Letnik:
650, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Pixel Detector is the innermost part of the ATLAS experiment tracking device at the Large Hadron Collider, and plays a key role in the reconstruction of the primary vertices from the collisions ...and secondary vertices produced by short-lived particles. To cope with the high level of radiation produced during the collider operation, it is planned to add to the present three layers of silicon pixel sensors which constitute the Pixel Detector, an additional layer (Insertable B-Layer, or IBL) of sensors. 3D silicon sensors are one of the technologies which are under study for the IBL. 3D silicon technology is an innovative combination of very-large-scale integration and Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems where electrodes are fabricated inside the silicon bulk instead of being implanted on the wafer surfaces. 3D sensors, with electrodes fully or partially penetrating the silicon substrate, are currently fabricated at different processing facilities in Europe and USA. This paper reports on the 2010 June beam test results for irradiated 3D devices produced at FBK (Trento, Italy). The performance of these devices, all bump-bonded with the ATLAS pixel FE-I3 read-out chip, is compared to that observed before irradiation in a previous beam test.
We investigate experimentally the possibility of enhancing the production of 2S3 positronium atoms by driving the 1S3–3P3 and 3P3–2S3 transitions, overcoming the natural branching ratio limitation of ...spontaneous decay from 3P3 to 2S3. The decay of 3P3 positronium atoms toward the 2S3 level has been efficiently stimulated by a 1312.2 nm broadband IR laser pulse. The dependence of the stimulating transition efficiency on the intensity of the IR pulse has been measured to find the optimal enhancement conditions. A maximum relative increase of ×(3.1±1.0) in the 2S3 production efficiency, with respect to the case in which only spontaneous decay is present, was obtained.
Antihydrogen holds the promise to test, for the first time, the universality of free-fall with a system composed entirely of antiparticles. The AEgIS experiment at CERN’s antiproton decelerator aims ...to measure the gravitational interaction between matter and antimatter by measuring the deflection of a beam of antihydrogen in the Earths gravitational field (
g
¯
). The principle of the experiment is as follows: cold antihydrogen atoms are synthesized in a Penning-Malberg trap and are Stark accelerated towards a moiré deflectometer, the classical counterpart of an atom interferometer, and annihilate on a position sensitive detector. Crucial to the success of the experiment is the spatial precision of the position sensitive detector. We propose a novel free-fall detector based on a hybrid of two technologies: emulsion detectors, which have an intrinsic spatial resolution of 50 nm but no temporal information, and a silicon strip / scintillating fiber tracker to provide timing and positional information. In 2012 we tested emulsion films in vacuum with antiprotons from CERN’s antiproton decelerator. The annihilation vertices could be observed directly on the emulsion surface using the microscope facility available at the University of Bern. The annihilation vertices were successfully reconstructed with a resolution of 1–2 μmon the impact parameter. If such a precision can be realized in the final detector, Monte Carlo simulations suggest of order 500 antihydrogen annihilations will be sufficient to determine
g
¯
with a 1 % accuracy. This paper presents current research towards the development of this technology for use in the AEgIS apparatus and prospects for the realization of the final detector.
3D silicon pixel sensors: Recent test beam results Hansson, P.; Balbuena, J.; Barrera, C. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
02/2011, Letnik:
628, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The 3D silicon sensors aimed for the ATLAS pixel detector upgrade have been tested with a high energy pion beam at the CERN SPS in 2009. Two types of sensor layouts were tested: full-3D assemblies ...fabricated in Stanford, where the electrodes penetrate the entire silicon wafer thickness, and modified-3D assemblies fabricated at FBK-irst with partially overlapping electrodes. In both cases three read-out electrodes are ganged together to form pixels of dimension
50
×
400
μ
m
2
. Data on the pulse height distribution, tracking efficiency and resolution were collected for various particle incident angles, with and without a 1.6
T magnetic field. Data from a planar sensor of the type presently used in the ATLAS detector were used at the same time to give comparison.
The weak equivalence principle states that the motion of a body in a gravitational field is independent of its structure or composition. This postulate of general relativity has been tested to very ...high precision with ordinary matter, but no relevant experimental verification with antimatter has ever been carried out. The AEGIS experiment will measure the gravitational acceleration of antihydrogen to ultimately 1% precision. For this purpose, a pulsed horizontal antihydrogen beam with a velocity of several 100 m s−1 will be produced. Its vertical deflection due to gravity will be detected by a setup consisting of material gratings coupled with a position-sensitive detector, operating as a moiré deflectometer or an atom interferometer. The AEGIS experiment is installed at CERN’s Antiproton Decelerator, currently the only facility in the world which produces copious amounts of low-energy antiprotons. The construction of the setup has been going on since 2010 and is nearing completion. A proof-of-principle experiment with antiprotons has demonstrated that the deflection of antiparticles by a few μm due to an external force can be detected. Technological and scientific development pertaining to specific challenges of the experiment, such as antihydrogen formation by positronium charge exchange or the position-sensitive detection of antihydrogen annihilations, is ongoing.
► Prospects for DM searches with CTA at various targets. ► Prospects for ALP searches with CTA. ► Prospects for LIV searches with CTA. ► Prospects for neutrinos, magnetic monopoles and gravitational ...waves searches with CTA.
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a project for a next-generation observatory for very high energy (GeV–TeV) ground-based gamma-ray astronomy, currently in its design phase, and foreseen to be operative a few years from now. Several tens of telescopes of 2–3 different sizes, distributed over a large area, will allow for a sensitivity about a factor 10 better than current instruments such as H.E.S.S, MAGIC and VERITAS, an energy coverage from a few tens of GeV to several tens of TeV, and a field of view of up to 10°. In the following study, we investigate the prospects for CTA to study several science questions that can profoundly influence our current knowledge of fundamental physics. Based on conservative assumptions for the performance of the different CTA telescope configurations currently under discussion, we employ a Monte Carlo based approach to evaluate the prospects for detection and characterisation of new physics with the array.
First, we discuss CTA prospects for cold dark matter searches, following different observational strategies: in dwarf satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, which are virtually void of astrophysical background and have a relatively well known dark matter density; in the region close to the Galactic Centre, where the dark matter density is expected to be large while the astrophysical background due to the Galactic Centre can be excluded; and in clusters of galaxies, where the intrinsic flux may be boosted significantly by the large number of halo substructures. The possible search for spatial signatures, facilitated by the larger field of view of CTA, is also discussed. Next we consider searches for axion-like particles which, besides being possible candidates for dark matter may also explain the unexpectedly low absorption by extragalactic background light of gamma-rays from very distant blazars. We establish the axion mass range CTA could probe through observation of long-lasting flares in distant sources. Simulated light-curves of flaring sources are also used to determine the sensitivity to violations of Lorentz invariance by detection of the possible delay between the arrival times of photons at different energies. Finally, we mention searches for other exotic physics with CTA.
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