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Barenboim, G., Masud, M., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2019). Exploring the intrinsic Lorentz-violating parameters at DUNE. Phys. Lett. B, 788, 308–315.
Abstract: Neutrinos can push our search for new physics to a whole new level. What makes them so hard to be detected, what allows them to travel humongous distances without being stopped or deflected allows to amplify Planck suppressed effects (or effects of comparable size) to a level that we can measure or bound in DUNE. In this work we analyze the sensitivity of DUNE to CPT and Lorentz-violating interactions in a framework that allows a straightforward extrapolation of the bounds obtained to any phenomenological modification of the dispersion relation of neutrinos.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Bailey, A. J., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Carrio Argos, F., et al. (2018). Operation and performance of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter in Run 1. Eur. Phys. J. C, 78(12), 987–48pp.
Abstract: The Tile Calorimeter is the hadron calorimeter covering the central region of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Approximately 10,000 photomultipliers collect light from scintillating tiles acting as the active material sandwiched between slabs of steel absorber. This paper gives an overview of the calorimeter's performance during the years 2008-2012 using cosmic-ray muon events and proton-proton collision data at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV with a total integrated luminosity of nearly 30 fb(-1). The signal reconstruction methods, calibration systems as well as the detector operation status are presented. The energy and time calibration methods performed excellently, resulting in good stability of the calorimeter response under varying conditions during the LHC Run 1. Finally, the Tile Calorimeter response to isolated muons and hadrons as well as to jets from proton-proton collisions is presented. The results demonstrate excellent performance in accord with specifications mentioned in the Technical Design Report.
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NEXT Collaboration(Henriques, C. A. O. et al), Alvarez, V., Benlloch-Rodriguez, J. M., Botas, A., Carcel, S., Carrion, J. V., et al. (2019). Electroluminescence TPCs at the thermal diffusion limit. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 027–23pp.
Abstract: The NEXT experiment aims at searching for the hypothetical neutrinoless double-beta decay from the Xe-136 isotope using a high-purity xenon TPC. Efficient discrimination of the events through pattern recognition of the topology of primary ionisation tracks is a major requirement for the experiment. However, it is limited by the diffusion of electrons. It is known that the addition of a small fraction of a molecular gas to xenon reduces electron diffusion. On the other hand, the electroluminescence (EL) yield drops and the achievable energy resolution may be compromised. We have studied the effect of adding several molecular gases to xenon (CO2, CH4 and CF4) on the EL yield and energy resolution obtained in a small prototype of driftless gas proportional scintillation counter. We have compared our results on the scintillation characteristics (EL yield and energy resolution) with a microscopic simulation, obtaining the diffusion coefficients in those conditions as well. Accordingly, electron diffusion may be reduced from about 10 for pure xenon down to 2.5 using additive concentrations of about 0.05%, 0.2% and 0.02% for CO2, CH4 and CF4, respectively. Our results show that CF4 admixtures present the highest EL yield in those conditions, but very poor energy resolution as a result of huge fluctuations observed in the EL formation. CH4 presents the best energy resolution despite the EL yield being the lowest. The results obtained with xenon admixtures are extrapolated to the operational conditions of the NEXT-100 TPC. CO2 and CH4 show potential as molecular additives in a large xenon TPC. While CO2 has some operational constraints, making it difficult to be used in a large TPC, CH4 shows the best performance and stability as molecular additive to be used in the NEXT-100 TPC, with an extrapolated energy resolution of 0.4% at 2.45 MeV for concentrations below 0.4%, which is only slightly worse than the one obtained for pure xenon. We demonstrate the possibility to have an electroluminescence TPC operating very close to the thermal diffusion limit without jeopardizing the TPC performance, if CO2 or CH4 are chosen as additives.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2018). Search for pair and single production of vectorlike quarks in final states with at least one Z boson decaying into a pair of electrons or muons in pp collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at root s=13 TeV. Phys. Rev. D, 98(11), 112010–53pp.
Abstract: A search for vectorlike quarks is presented, which targets their decay into a Z boson and a third-generation Standard Model quark. In the case of a vectorlike quark T (B) with charge +2/3e (-1/3e), the decay searched for is T -> Zt (B -> Zb). Data for this analysis were taken during 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1) of pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV. The final state used is characterized by the presence of b-tagged jets, as well as a Z boson with high transverse momentum, which is reconstructed from a pair of opposite-sign same-flavor leptons. Pair and single production of vectorlike quarks are both taken into account and are each searched for using optimized dileptonic exclusive and trileptonic inclusive event selections. In these selections, the high scalar sum of jet transverse momenta, the presence of high-transverse-momentum large-radius jets, as well as-in the case of the single-production selections-the presence of forward jets are used. No significant excess over the background-only hypothesis is found and exclusion limits at 95% confidence level allow masses of vectorlike quarks of m(T) > 1030 GeV (m(T) > 1210 GeV) and m(B) > 1010 GeV (m(B) > 1140 GeV) in the singlet (doublet) model. In the case of 100% branching ratio for T -> Zt (B -> Zb), the limits are m(T) > 1340 GeV (m(B) > 1220 GeV). Limits at 95% confidence level are also set on the coupling to Standard Model quarks for given vectorlike quark masses.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), Barrios-Marti, J., Coleiro, A., Colomer, M., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Illuminati, G., et al. (2019). The search for high-energy neutrinos coincident with fast radio bursts with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 482(1), 184–193.
Abstract: In the past decade, a new class of bright transient radio sources with millisecond duration has been discovered. The origin of these so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) is still a mystery, despite the growing observational efforts made by various multiwavelength and multimessenger facilities. To date, many models have been proposed to explain FRBs, but neither the progenitors nor the radiative and the particle acceleration processes at work have been clearly identified. In this paper, we assess whether hadronic processes may occur in the vicinity of the FRB source. If they do, FRBs may contribute to the high-energy cosmic-ray and neutrino fluxes. A search for these hadronic signatures was carried out using the ANTARES neutrino telescope. The analysis consists in looking for high-energy neutrinos, in the TeV-PeV regime, that are spatially and temporally coincident with the detected FRBs. Most of the FRBs discovered in the period 2013-2017 were in the field of view of the ANTARES detector, which is sensitive mostly to events originating from the Southern hemisphere. From this period, 12 FRBs were selected and no coincident neutrino candidate was observed. Upper limits on the per-burst neutrino fluence were derived using a power-law spectrum, dN/DE nu proportional to E-nu(-gamma), for the incoming neutrino flux, assuming spectral indexes gamma = 1.0, 2.0, 2.5. Finally, the neutrino energy was constrained by computing the total energy radiated in neutrinos, assuming different distances for the FRBs. Constraints on the neutrino fluence and on the energy released were derived from the associated null results.
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