Abstract: The direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs) of frequencies above MHz has recently received considerable attention. In this work, we present a precise study of the reach of a cubic cavity resonator to GWs in the microwave range, using for the first time tools allowing to perform realistic simulations. Concretely, the boundary integral -resonant mode expansion (BI-RME) 3D method, which allows us to obtain not only the detected power but also the detected voltage (magnitude and phase), is used here. After analyzing three cubic cavities for different frequencies and working simultaneously with three different degenerate modes at each cavity, we conclude that the sensitivity of the experiment is strongly dependent on the polarization and incidence angle of the GW. The presented experiment can reach sensitivities up to 1 x 10 – 19 at 100 MHz, 2 x 10 – 20 at 1 GHz, and 6 x 10 – 19 at 10 GHz for optimal angles and polarizations, and where in all cases we assumed an integration time of Delta t 1 / 4 1 ms. These results provide a strong case for further developing the use of cavities to detect GWs. Moreover, the possibility of analyzing the detected voltage (magnitude and phase) opens a new interferometric detection scheme based on the combination of the detected signals from multiple cavities.

Abstract: Treatment planning systems at proton-therapy centres entirely use X-ray computed tomography (CT) as primary imaging technique to infer the proton treatment doses to tumour and healthy tissues. However, proton stopping powers in the body, as derived from X-ray images, suffer from important proton-range uncertainties. In order to reduce this uncertainty in range, one could use proton-CT images instead. The main goal of this work is to test the capabilities of a newly-developed proton-CT scanner, based on the use of a set of tracking detectors and a high energy resolution scintillator for the residual energy of the protons. Different custom-made phantoms were positioned at the field of view of the scanner and were irradiated with protons at the CCB proton-therapy center in Krakow. We measured with the phantoms at different angles and produced sinograms that were used to obtain reconstructed images by Filtered Back-Projection. The obtained images were used to determine the capabilities of our scanner in terms of spatial resolution and proton Relative Stopping Power (RSP) mapping and validate its use as proton-CT scanner. The results show that the scanner can produce medium-high quality images, with spatial resolution better than 2 mm in radiography, below 3 mm in tomography and resolving power in the RSP comparable to other state-of-the-art pCT scanners.

Abstract: The inclusion of an additional U(1) gauge L-mu – L-tau symmetry would release the tension between the measured and the predicted value of the anomalous muon magnetic moment: this paradigm assumes the existence of a new, light Z ' vector boson, with dominant coupling to μand tau leptons and interacting with electrons via a loop mechanism. The L-mu – L-tau model can also explain the Dark Matter relic abundance, by assuming that the Z ' boson acts as a “portal” to a new Dark Sector of particles in Nature, not charged under known interactions. In this work we present the results of the Z ' search performed by the NA64-e experiment at CERN SPS, that collected similar to 9 x 10(11) 100 GeV electrons impinging on an active thick target. Despite the suppressed Z ' production yield with an electron beam, NA64-e provides the first accelerator-based results excluding the g – 2 preferred band of the Z ' parameter space in the 1 keV < m(Z ') less than or similar to 2 MeV range, in complementarity with the limits recently obtained by the NA64-mu experiment with a muon beam.