Yepes, H. (2012). The ANTARES neutrino detector instrumentation. J. Instrum., 7, C01022–9pp.
Abstract: ANTARES is actually the fully operational and the largest neutrino telescope in the Northern hemisphere. Located in the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of a 3D array of 885 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) arranged in 12 detection lines (25 storeys each), able to detect the Cherenkov light induced by upgoing relativistic muons produced in the interaction of high energy cosmic neutrinos with the detector surroundings. Among its physics goals, the search for neutrino astrophysical sources and the indirect detection of dark matter particles coming from the sun are of particular interest. To reach these goals, good accuracy in track reconstruction is mandatory, so several calibration systems for timing and positioning have been developed. In this contribution we will present the design of the detector, calibration systems, associated equipment and its performance on track reconstruction.
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Agullo, I., Navarro-Salas, J., & Parker, L. (2012). Enhanced local-type inflationary trispectrum from a non-vacuum initial state. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 019–13pp.
Abstract: We compute the primordial trispectrum for curvature perturbations produced during cosmic inflation in models with standard kinetic terms, when the initial quantum state is not necessarily the vacuum state. The presence of initial perturbations enhances the trispectrum amplitude for configuration in which one of the momenta, say k(3), is much smaller than the others, k(3) << k(1,2,4). For those squeezed con figurations the trispectrum acquires the so-called local form, with a scale dependent amplitude that can get values of order epsilon(k(1)/k(3))(2). This amplitude could be larger than the prediction of the so-called Maldacena consistency relation by a factor as large as 10(6), and could reach the sensitivity of forthcoming observations, even for single-field inflationary models.
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Garcia, A. R., Martinez, T., Cano-Ott, D., Castilla, J., Guerrero, C., Marin, J., et al. (2012). MONSTER: a time of flight spectrometer for beta-delayed neutron emission measurements. J. Instrum., 7, C05012–12pp.
Abstract: The knowledge of the beta-decay properties of nuclei contributes decisively to our understanding of nuclear phenomena: the beta-delayed neutron emission of neutron rich nuclei plays an important role in the nucleosynthesis r-process and constitutes a probe for nuclear structure of very neutron rich nuclei providing information about the high energy part of the full beta strength (S-beta) function. In addition, beta-delayed neutrons are essential for the control and safety of nuclear reactors. In order to determine the neutron energy spectra and emission probabilities from neutron precursors a MOdular Neutron time-of-flight SpectromeTER (MONSTER) has been proposed for the DESPEC experiment at the future FAIR facility. The design of MONSTER and status of its construction are reported in this work.
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Semikoz, V. B., Sokoloff, D. D., & Valle, J. W. F. (2012). Lepton asymmetries and primordial hypermagnetic helicity evolution. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 008–12pp.
Abstract: The hypermagnetic helicity density at the electroweak phase transition (EWPT) exceeds many orders of magnitude the galactic magnetic helicity density. Together with previous magnetic helicity evolution calculations after the EWPT and hypermagnetic helicity conversion to the magnetic one at the EWPT, the present calculation completes the description of the evolution of this important topological feature of cosmological magnetic fields. It suggests that if the magnetic field seeding the galactic dynamo has a primordial origin, it should be substantially helical. This should be taken into account in scenarios of galactic magnetic field evolution with a cosmological seed.
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Blennow, M., Fernandez-Martinez, E., Mena, O., Redondo, J., & Serra, E. P. (2012). Asymmetric Dark Matter and Dark Radiation. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 07(7), 022–23pp.
Abstract: Asymmetric Dark Matter (ADM) models invoke a particle-antiparticle asymmetry, similar to the one observed in the Baryon sector, to account for the Dark Matter (DM) abundance. Both asymmetries are usually generated by the same mechanism and generally related, thus predicting DM masses around 5 GeV in order to obtain the correct density. The main challenge for successful models is to ensure efficient annihilation of the thermally produced symmetric component of such a light DM candidate without violating constraints from collider or direct searches. A common way to overcome this involves a light mediator, into which DM can efficiently annihilate and which subsequently decays into Standard Model particles. Here we explore the scenario where the light mediator decays instead into lighter degrees of freedom in the dark sector that act as radiation in the early Universe. While this assumption makes indirect DM searches challenging, it leads to signals of extra radiation at BBN and CMB. Under certain conditions, precise measurements of the number of relativistic species, such as those expected from the Planck satellite, can provide information on the structure of the dark sector. We also discuss the constraints of the interactions between DM and Dark Radiation from their imprint in the matter power spectrum.
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Racker, J., Pena, M., & Rius, N. (2012). Leptogenesis with small violation of B – L. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 07(7), 030–18pp.
Abstract: We analyze leptogenesis in the context of seesaw models with almost conserved lepton number, focusing on the L-conserving contribution to the flavoured CP asymmetries. We find that, contrary to previous claims, successful leptogenesis is feasible for masses of the lightest heavy neutrino as low as M-1 similar to 10(6) GeV, without resorting to the resonant enhancement of the CP asymmetry for strongly degenerate heavy neutrinos. This lower limit renders thermal leptogenesis compatible with the gravitino bound in supersymmetric scenarios.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Aguilar, J. A., Bigongiari, C., Dornic, D., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., et al. (2012). The positioning system of the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope. J. Instrum., 7, T08002–20pp.
Abstract: The ANTARES neutrino telescope, located 40km off the coast of Toulon in the Mediterranean Sea at a mooring depth of about 2475m, consists of twelve detection lines equipped typically with 25 storeys. Every storey carries three optical modules that detect Cherenkov light induced by charged secondary particles (typically muons) coming from neutrino interactions. As these lines are flexible structures fixed to the sea bed and held taut by a buoy, sea currents cause the lines to move and the storeys to rotate. The knowledge of the position of the optical modules with a precision better than 10cm is essential for a good reconstruction of particle tracks. In this paper the ANTARES positioning system is described. It consists of an acoustic positioning system, for distance triangulation, and a compass-tiltmeter system, for the measurement of the orientation and inclination of the storeys. Necessary corrections are discussed and the results of the detector alignment procedure are described.
Keywords: Timing detectors; Detector modelling and simulations II (electric fields, charge transport, multiplication and induction, pulse formation, electron emission, etc); Detector alignment and calibration methods (lasers, sources, particle-beams); Detector control systems (detector and experiment monitoring and slow-control systems, architecture, hardware, algorithms, databases)
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Pierre Auger Collaboration(Abreu, P. et al), & Pastor, S. (2012). A search for point sources of EeV neutrons. Astrophys. J., 760(2), 148–11pp.
Abstract: A thorough search of the sky exposed at the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory reveals no statistically significant excess of events in any small solid angle that would be indicative of a flux of neutral particles from a discrete source. The search covers from -90 degrees to +15 degrees in declination using four different energy ranges above 1 EeV (10(18) eV). The method used in this search is more sensitive to neutrons than to photons. The upper limit on a neutron flux is derived for a dense grid of directions for each of the four energy ranges. These results constrain scenarios for the production of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays in the Galaxy.
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Das, S., de Putter, R., Linder, E. V., & Nakajima, R. (2012). Weak lensing cosmology beyond Lambda CDM. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 23pp.
Abstract: Weak gravitational lensing is one of the key probes of the cosmological model, dark energy, and dark matter, providing insight into both the cosmic expansion history and large scale structure growth history. Taking into account a broad spectrum of physics affecting growth – dynamical dark energy, extended gravity, neutrino masses, and spatial curvature – we analyze the cosmological constraints. Similarly we consider the effects of a range of systematic uncertainties, in shear measurement, photometric redshifts, intrinsic alignments, and the nonlinear power spectrum, on cosmological parameter extraction. We also investigate, and provide fitting formulas tor, the influence of survey parameters such as redshift depth, galaxy number densities, and sky area on the cosmological constraints in the beyond-ACDM parameter space. Finally, we examine the robustness of results for different fiducial cosmologies.
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Esteve, R., Toledo, J., Monrabal, F., Lorca, D., Serra, L., Mari, A., et al. (2012). The trigger system in the NEXT-DEMO detector. J. Instrum., 7, C12001–9pp.
Abstract: NEXT-DEMO is a prototype of NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with Xenon TPC), an experiment to search for neutrino-less double beta decay using a 100 kg radio-pure, 90 % enriched (136Xe isotope) high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC with electroluminescence readout. The detector is based on a PMT plane for energy measurements and a SiPM tracking plane for topological event filtering. The experiment will be located in the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Spain. Front-end electronics, trigger and data-acquisition systems (DAQ) have been built. The DAQ is an implementation of the Scalable Readout System (RD51 collaboration) based on FPGA. Our approach for trigger is to have a distributed and reconfigurable system in the DAQ itself. Moreover, the trigger allows on-line triggering based on the detection of primary or secondary scintillation light, or a combination of both, that arrives to the PMT plane.
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