Abstract: We present a methodology to obtain the energy distribution of the neutron flux of an experimental nuclear reactor, using multi-foil activation measurements and the Expectation Maximization unfolding algorithm, which is presented as an alternative to well known unfolding methods such as GRAVEL. Self-shielding flux corrections for energy bin groups were obtained using MCNP6 Monte Carlo simulations. We have made studies at the at the Dry Tube of RECH-1 obtaining fluxes of 1.5(4) x 10(13) cm(-2) s(-1) for the thermal neutron energy region, 1.9(5) x 10(12) cm(-2) s(-1) for the epithermal neutron energy region, and 4.3(11) x 10(11) cm(-2) s(-1) for the fast neutron energy region.

Abstract: Muons created by nu(mu) charged current (CC) interactions in the water surrounding the ANTARES neutrino telescope have been almost exclusively used so far in searches for cosmic neutrino sources. Due to their long range, highly energetic muons inducing Cherenkov radiation in the water are reconstructed with dedicated algorithms that allow for the determination of the parent neutrino direction with a median angular resolution of about 0 degrees.4 for an E-2 neutrino spectrum. In this paper, an algorithm optimized for accurate reconstruction of energy and direction of shower events in the ANTARES detector is presented. Hadronic showers of electrically charged particles are produced by the disintegration of the nucleus both in CC and neutral current interactions of neutrinos in water. In addition, electromagnetic showers result from the CC interactions of electron neutrinos while the decay of a tau lepton produced in nu(tau) CC interactions will, in most cases, lead to either a hadronic or an electromagnetic shower. A shower can be approximated as a point source of photons. With the presented method, the shower position is reconstructed with a precision of about 1 m; the neutrino direction is reconstructed with a median angular resolution between 2 degrees and 3 degrees in the energy range of 1-1000 TeV. In this energy interval, the uncertainty on the reconstructed neutrino energy is about 5%-10%. The increase in the detector sensitivity due to the use of additional information from shower events in the searches for a cosmic neutrino flux is also presented.

Abstract: Context. The existence of a maximum correlation angle (theta(max) & 60 greater than or similar to degrees) in the two-point angular temperature correlations of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, measured by WMAP and Planck, stands in sharp contrast to the prediction of standard inflationary cosmology, in which the correlations should extend across the full sky (i.e., 180 degrees). The introduction of a hard lower cuto ff (k(min)) in the primordial power spectrum, however, leads naturally to the existence of theta(max). Among other cosmological anomalies detected in these data, an apparent dominance of odd-over-even parity multipoles has been seen in the angular power spectrum of the CMB. This feature, however, may simply be due to observational contamination in certain regions of the sky. Aims. In attempting to provide a more detailed assessment of whether this odd-over-even asymmetry is intrinsic to the CMB, we therefore proceed in this paper, first, to examine whether this odd-even parity imbalance also manifests itself in the angular correlation function and, second, to examine in detail the interplay between the presence of theta(max) and this observed anomaly. Methods. We employed several parity statistics and recalculated the angular correlation function for di fferent values of the cuto ff kmin in order to optimize the fit to the di fferent Planck 2018 data. Results. We find a phenomenological connection between these features in the data, concluding that both must be considered together in order to optimize the theoretical fit to the Planck 2018 data. Conclusions. This outcome is independent of whether the parity imbalance is intrinsic to the CMB, but if it is, the odd-over-even asymmetry would clearly point to the emergence of new physics.

Abstract: Context. Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy is still a rather young field of research, with strong historical connections to particle physics. This is why most observations are conducted by experiments with proprietary data and analysis software, as is usual in the particle physics field. However, in recent years, this paradigm has been slowly shifting toward the development and use of open-source data formats and tools, driven by upcoming observatories such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). In this context, a community-driven, shared data format (the gamma-astro-data-format, or GADF) and analysis tools such as Gammapy and ctools have been developed. So far, these efforts have been led by the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope community, leaving out other types of ground-based gamma-ray instruments. Aims. We aim to show that the data from ground particle arrays, such as the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, are also compatible with the GADF and can thus be fully analyzed using the related tools, in this case, Gammapy. Methods. We reproduced several published HAWC results using Gammapy and data products compliant with GADF standard. We also illustrate the capabilities of the shared format and tools by producing a joint fit of the Crab spectrum including data from six different gamma-ray experiments. Results. We find excellent agreement with the reference results, a powerful confirmation of both the published results and the tools involved. Conclusions. The data from particle detector arrays such as the HAWC observatory can be adapted to the GADF and thus analyzed with Gammapy. A common data format and shared analysis tools allow multi-instrument joint analysis and effective data sharing. To emphasize this, a sample of Crab nebula event lists is made public with this paper. Because of the complementary nature of pointing and wide-field instruments, this synergy will be distinctly beneficial for the joint scientific exploitation of future observatories such as the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory and CTA.

Abstract: Aims. In astronomy, machine learning has been successful in various tasks such as source localisation, classification, anomaly detection, and segmentation. However, feature regression remains an area with room for improvement. We aim to design a network that can accurately estimate sources' features and their uncertainties from single-band image cutouts, given the approximated locations of the sources provided by the previously developed code AutoSourceID-Light (ASID-L) or other external catalogues. This work serves as a proof of concept, showing the potential of machine learning in estimating astronomical features when trained on meticulously crafted synthetic images and subsequently applied to real astronomical data.Methods. The algorithm presented here, AutoSourceID-FeatureExtractor (ASID-FE), uses single-band cutouts of 32x32 pixels around the localised sources to estimate flux, sub-pixel centre coordinates, and their uncertainties. ASID-FE employs a two-step mean variance estimation (TS-MVE) approach to first estimate the features and then their uncertainties without the need for additional information, for example the point spread function (PSF). For this proof of concept, we generated a synthetic dataset comprising only point sources directly derived from real images, ensuring a controlled yet authentic testing environment.Results. We show that ASID-FE, trained on synthetic images derived from the MeerLICHT telescope, can predict more accurate features with respect to similar codes such as SourceExtractor and that the two-step method can estimate well-calibrated uncertainties that are better behaved compared to similar methods that use deep ensembles of simple MVE networks. Finally, we evaluate the model on real images from the MeerLICHT telescope and the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) to test its transfer learning abilities.