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NEXT Collaboration(Alvarez, V. et al), Carcel, S., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Diaz, J., Ferrario, P., Gil, A., et al. (2013). Operation and first results of the NEXT-DEMO prototype using a silicon photomultiplier tracking array. J. Instrum., 8, P09011–20pp.
Abstract: NEXT-DEMO is a high-pressure xenon gas TPC which acts as a technological test-bed and demonstrator for the NEXT-100 neutrinoless double beta decay experiment. In its current configuration the apparatus fully implements the NEXT-100 design concept. This is an asymmetric TPC, with an energy plane made of photomultipliers and a tracking plane made of silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) coated with TPB. The detector in this new configuration has been used to reconstruct the characteristic signature of electrons in dense gas, demonstrating the ability to identify the MIP and “blob” regions. Moreover, the SiPM tracking plane allows for the definition of a large fiducial region in which an excellent energy resolution of 1.82% FWHM at 511 keV has been measured (a value which extrapolates to 0.83% at the xenon Q(beta beta)).
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NOMAD Collaboration(Samoylov, O. et al), Cervera-Villanueva, A., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., & Hernando, J. (2013). A precision measurement of charm dimuon production in neutrino interactions from the NOMAD experiment. Nucl. Phys. B, 876(2), 339–375.
Abstract: We present our new measurement of the cross-section for charm dimuon production in neutrino iron interactions based upon the full statistics collected by the NOMAD experiment. After background subtraction we observe 15 344 charm dimuon events, providing the largest sample currently available. The analysis exploits the large inclusive charged current sample – about 9 x 10(6) events after all analysis cuts – and the high resolution NOMAD detector to constrain the total systematic uncertainty on the ratio of charm dimuon to inclusive Charged Current (CC) cross-sections to similar to 2%. We also perform a fit to the NOMAD data to extract the charm production parameters and the strange quark sea content of the nucleon within the NLO QCD approximation. We obtain a value of m(c)(m(c)) = 1.159 +/- 0.075 GeV/c(2) for the running mass of the charm quark in the (MS) over bar scheme and a strange quark sea suppression factor of kappa(s) = 0.591 +/- 0.019 at Q(2) = 20 GeV2/c(2).
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Bross, A., Wands, R., Bayes, R., Laing, A., Soler, F. J. P., Cervera-Villanueva, A., et al. (2013). Toroidal magnetized iron neutrino detector for a neutrino factory. Phys. Rev. Spec. Top.-Accel. Beams, 16(8), 081002–16pp.
Abstract: A neutrino factory has unparalleled physics reach for the discovery and measurement of CP violation in the neutrino sector. A far detector for a neutrino factory must have good charge identification with excellent background rejection and a large mass. An elegant solution is to construct a magnetized iron neutrino detector (MIND) along the lines of MINOS, where iron plates provide a toroidal magnetic field and scintillator planes provide 3D space points. In this paper, the current status of a simulation of a toroidal MIND for a neutrino factory is discussed in light of the recent measurements of large theta(13). The response and performance using the 10 GeV neutrino factory configuration are presented. It is shown that this setup has equivalent delta(CP) reach to a MIND with a dipole field and is sensitive to the discovery of CP violation over 85% of the values of delta(CP).
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T2K Collaboration(Abe, K. et al), Cervera-Villanueva, A., Escudero, L., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Izmaylov, A., Monfregola, L., et al. (2013). Evidence of electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam. Phys. Rev. D, 88(3), 032002–41pp.
Abstract: The T2K Collaboration reports evidence for electron neutrino appearance at the atmospheric mass splitting, vertical bar Delta m(32)(2)vertical bar approximate to 2.4 X 10(-3) eV(2). An excess of electron neutrino interactions over background is observed from a muon neutrino beam with a peak energy of 0.6 GeV at the Super-Kamiokande (SK) detector 295 km from the beam's origin. Signal and background predictions are constrained by data from near detectors located 280 m from the neutrino production target. We observe 11 electron neutrino candidate events at the SK detector when a background of 3.3 +/- 0.4(syst) events is expected. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with a p value of 0.0009 (3.1 sigma), and a fit assuming nu(mu) -> nu(e) oscillations with sin (2)2 theta(23) = 1, delta(CP) = 0 and vertical bar Delta m(32)(2)vertical bar = 2.4 X 10(-3) eV(2) yields sin (2)2 theta(13) = 0.088(-0.039)(+0.049)(stat + syst).
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NEXT Collaboration(Alvarez, V. et al), Ball, M., Carcel, S., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Diaz, J., Ferrario, P., et al. (2013). Design and characterization of the SiPM tracking system of NEXT-DEMO, a demonstrator prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment. J. Instrum., 8, T05002–18pp.
Abstract: NEXT-100 experiment aims at searching the neutrinoless double-beta decay of the Xe-136 isotope using a TPC filled with a 100 kg of high-pressure gaseous xenon, with 90% isotopic enrichment. The experiment will take place at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc (LSC), Spain. NEXT-100 uses electroluminescence (EL) technology for energy measurement with a resolution better than 1% FWHM. The gaseous xenon in the TPC additionally allows the tracks of the two beta particles to be recorded, which are expected to have a length of up to 30 cm at 10 bar pressure. The ability to record the topological signature of the beta beta 0 nu events provides a powerful background rejection factor for the beta beta experiment. In this paper, we present a novel 3D imaging concept using SiPMs coated with tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB) for the EL read out and its first implementation in NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment. The design and the first characterization measurements of the NEXT-DEMO SiPM tracking system are presented. The SiPM response uniformity over the tracking plane drawn from its gain map is shown to be better than 4%. An automated active control system for the stabilization of the SiPMs gain was developed, based on the voltage supply compensation of the gain drifts. The gain is shown to be stabilized within 0.2% relative variation around its nominal value, provided by Hamamatsu, in a temperature range of 10 degrees C. The noise level from the electronics and the SiPM dark noise is shown to lay typically below the level of 10 photoelectrons (pe) in the ADC. Hence, a detection threshold at 10 pe is set for the acquisition of the tracking signals. The ADC full dynamic range (4096 channels) is shown to be adequate for signal levels of up to 200 pe/mu s, which enables recording most of the tracking signals.
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