•Benchmark of 6 SA codes (14 participants) for two accident scenarios in a Spent Fuel Pool.•Differences in draining velocity induced scattering in the onset of fuel heat-up (LOCA scenario).•For both ...scenarios, important spreading in the heating rate and hydrogen production.•Discrepancies due to differences in physical models and in the representation of the storage racks.•Criticality risk assessment by 5 participants with a rather good agreement of the results.
Spent fuel pools (SFPs) are large structures equipped with storage racks designed to temporarily store irradiated nuclear fuel removed from the reactor. SFP severe accidents have long been considered as highly improbable since the accident progression is slow (in comparison with reactor core accidents) and let time to corrective operator actions. However, the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plants has highlighted the vulnerability of nuclear fuels that are stored in SFPs in case of prolonged loss-of-cooling accidents and consequently renewed international interest in the safety of SFPs. In this context, the AIR-SFP project, funded by the Euratom 7th FP in the frame of the NUGENIA+ project, was launched in May 2015 with 15 participants. One of the objectives was to assess the applicability of Severe Accident (SA) codes, which were initially developed for reactor applications, to the calculation of transients in SFPs. To reach this objective, a benchmark, including a criticality risk assessment, was carried out. The degradation progression was computed by 14 participants with 6 different SA codes and 5 have participated to the criticality risk assessment. Main results are presented as well as conclusions that have been drawn concerning SA codes readiness to address these “beyond-scope” scenarios.
The NOvA experiment has seen a 4.4σ signal of ν¯e appearance in a 2 GeV ν¯μ beam at a distance of 810 km. Using 12.33×1020 protons on target delivered to the Fermilab NuMI neutrino beamline, the ...experiment recorded 27 ν¯μ→ν¯e candidates with a background of 10.3 and 102 ν¯μ→ν¯μ candidates. This new antineutrino data are combined with neutrino data to measure the parameters |Δm322|=2.48−0.06+0.11×10−3 eV2/c4 and sin2θ23 in the ranges from (0.53–0.60) and (0.45–0.48) in the normal neutrino mass hierarchy. The data exclude most values near δCP=π/2 for the inverted mass hierarchy by more than 3σ and favor the normal neutrino mass hierarchy by 1.9σ and θ23 values in the upper octant by 1.6σ.
Jet energy scale measurements and their systematic uncertainties are reported for jets measured with the ATLAS detector using proton-proton collision data with a center-of-mass energy of s=13 TeV, ...corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb−1 collected during 2015 at the LHC. Jets are reconstructed from energy deposits forming topological clusters of calorimeter cells, using the anti-kt algorithm with radius parameter R=0.4. Jets are calibrated with a series of simulation-based corrections and in situ techniques. In situ techniques exploit the transverse momentum balance between a jet and a reference object such as a photon, Z boson, or multijet system for jets with 20<pT<2000 GeV and pseudorapidities of |η|<4.5, using both data and simulation. An uncertainty in the jet energy scale of less than 1% is found in the central calorimeter region (|η|<1.2) for jets with 100<pT<500 GeV. An uncertainty of about 4.5% is found for low-pT jets with pT=20 GeV in the central region, dominated by uncertainties in the corrections for multiple proton-proton interactions. The calibration of forward jets (|η|>0.8) is derived from dijet pT balance measurements. For jets of pT=80 GeV, the additional uncertainty for the forward jet calibration reaches its largest value of about 2% in the range |η|>3.5 and in a narrow slice of 2.2<|η|<2.4.
The performance of the missing transverse momentum (
E
T
miss
) reconstruction with the ATLAS detector is evaluated using data collected in proton–proton collisions at the LHC at a centre-of-mass ...energy of 13 TeV in 2015. To reconstruct
E
T
miss
, fully calibrated electrons, muons, photons, hadronically decaying
τ
-leptons
, and jets reconstructed from calorimeter energy deposits and charged-particle tracks are used. These are combined with the soft hadronic activity measured by reconstructed charged-particle tracks not associated with the hard objects. Possible double counting of contributions from reconstructed charged-particle tracks from the inner detector, energy deposits in the calorimeter, and reconstructed muons from the muon spectrometer is avoided by applying a signal ambiguity resolution procedure which rejects already used signals when combining the various
E
T
miss
contributions. The individual terms as well as the overall reconstructed
E
T
miss
are evaluated with various performance metrics for scale (linearity), resolution, and sensitivity to the data-taking conditions. The method developed to determine the systematic uncertainties of the
E
T
miss
scale and resolution is discussed. Results are shown based on the full 2015 data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of
3.2
fb
-
1
.
A measurement of the mass of the
W
boson is presented based on proton–proton collision data recorded in 2011 at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, and corresponding ...to
4.6
fb
-
1
of integrated luminosity. The selected data sample consists of
7.8
×
10
6
candidates in the
W
→
μ
ν
channel and
5.9
×
10
6
candidates in the
W
→
e
ν
channel. The
W
-boson mass is obtained from template fits to the reconstructed distributions of the charged lepton transverse momentum and of the
W
boson transverse mass in the electron and muon decay channels, yielding
m
W
=
80370
±
7
(
stat.
)
±
11
(
exp. syst.
)
±
14
(
mod. syst.
)
MeV
=
80370
±
19
MeV
,
where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second corresponds to the experimental systematic uncertainty, and the third to the physics-modelling systematic uncertainty. A measurement of the mass difference between the
W
+
and
W
-
bosons yields
m
W
+
-
m
W
-
=
-
29
±
28
MeV.
We present updated results from the NOvA experiment for νμ→νμ and νμ→νe oscillations from an exposure of 8.85×1020 protons on target, which represents an increase of 46% compared to our previous ...publication. The results utilize significant improvements in both the simulations and analysis of the data. A joint fit to the data for νμ disappearance and νe appearance gives the best-fit point as normal mass hierarchy, Δm322=2.44×10−3 eV2/c4, sin2θ23=0.56, and δCP=1.21π. The 68.3% confidence intervals in the normal mass hierarchy are Δm322∈2.37,2.52×10−3 eV2/c4, sin2θ23∈0.43,0.51∪0.52,0.60, and δCP∈0,0.12π∪0.91π,2π. The inverted mass hierarchy is disfavored at the 95% confidence level for all choices of the other oscillation parameters.
The luminosity determination for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during
pp
collisions at
s
=
8 TeV in 2012 is presented. The evaluation of the luminosity scale is performed using several luminometers, ...and comparisons between these luminosity detectors are made to assess the accuracy, consistency and long-term stability of the results. A luminosity uncertainty of
δ
L
/
L
=
±
1.9
%
is obtained for the
22.7
fb
-
1
of
pp
collision data delivered to ATLAS at
s
=
8 TeV in 2012.
A
bstract
A search for Higgs boson pair production in the
b
b
¯
b
b
¯
final state is carried out with up to 36.1 fb
−1
of LHC proton-proton collision data collected at
s
=
13
TeV with the ATLAS ...detector in 2015 and 2016. Three benchmark signals are studied: a spin-2 graviton decaying into a Higgs boson pair, a scalar resonance decaying into a Higgs boson pair, and Standard Model non-resonant Higgs boson pair production. Two analyses are carried out, each implementing a particular technique for the event reconstruction that targets Higgs bosons reconstructed as pairs of jets or single boosted jets. The resonance mass range covered is 260–3000 GeV. The analyses are statistically combined and upper limits on the production cross section of Higgs boson pairs times branching ratio to
b
b
¯
b
b
¯
are set in each model. No significant excess is observed; the largest deviation of data over prediction is found at a mass of 280 GeV, corresponding to 2.3 standard deviations globally. The observed 95% confidence level upper limit on the non-resonant production is 13 times the Standard Model prediction.
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