Abstract: NEXT is a new experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a 100 kg radio-pure high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC with electroluminescence readout. A large-scale prototype with a SiPM tracking plane has been built. The primary electron paths can be reconstructed from time-resolved measurements of the light that arrives to the SiPM plane. Our approach is to measure how many photons have reached each SiPM sensor each microsecond with a gated integrator. We have designed and tested a 16-channel front-end board that includes the analog paths and a digital section. Each analog path consists of three different stages: a transimpedance amplifier, a gated integrator and an offset and gain control stage. Measurements show good linearity and the ability to detect single photoelectrons.

Abstract: The AX-PET collaboration has developed a novel concept for high resolution PET imaging to overcome some of the performance limitations of classical PET cameras, in particular the compromise between spatial resolution and sensitivity introduced by the parallax error. The detector consists of an arrangement of long LYSO scintillating crystals axially oriented around the field of view together with arrays of wave length shifter strips orthogonal to the crystals. This matrix allows a precise 3D measurement of the photon interaction point. This is valid both for photoelectric absorption at 511 key and for Compton scattering down to deposited energies of about 100 keV. Crystals and WLS strips are individually read out using Geiger-mode Avalanche Photo Diodes (G-APDs). The sensitivity of such a detector can be adjusted by changing the number of layers and the resolution is defined by the crystal and strip dimensions. Two AX-PET modules were built and fully characterized in dedicated test set-ups at CERN, with point-like Na-22 sources. Their performance in terms of energy (Renew approximate to 11.8% (FWMH) at 511 key) and spatial resolution was assessed (sigma(axial) approximate to 0.65 mm), both individually and for the two modules in coincidence. Test campaigns at ETH Zurich and at the company AAA allowed the tomographic reconstructions of more complex phantoms validating the 3D reconstruction algorithms. The concept of the AX-PET modules will be presented together with some characterization results. We describe a count rate model which allows to optimize the planing of the tomographic scans.

Abstract: Nuclear-medium effects on the weak structure functions F-2(x, Q(2)) and F-3(x, Q(2)) in charged-current neutrino and antineutrino induced deep-inelastic reactions in Pb-208 have been studied. The calculations have been performed in a theoretical model using relativistic nuclear spectral functions which incorporate Fermi motion, binding, and nucleon correlations. We have also included the pion and rho meson cloud contributions calculated from a microscopic model for meson-nucleus self-energies. Using these structure functions, differential scattering cross sections have been obtained and compared with the CERN Hybrid Oscillation Research Apparatus (CHORUS) data. The results for the ratios 2F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(D), 4F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(He), 12F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(C), 16F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(O), and 56F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(Fe) (i = 2, 3) have also been obtained and compared with some of the phenomenological fits.