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Fernandes, L. M. P., Freitas, E. D. C., Ball, M., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Monteiro, C. M. B., Yahlali, N., et al. (2010). Primary and secondary scintillation measurements in a Xenon Gas Proportional Scintillation Counter. J. Instrum., 5, P09006–15pp.
Abstract: NEXT is a new experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a 100 kg radio-pure high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC. The detector requires excellent energy resolution, which can be achieved in a Xe TPC with electroluminescence readout. Hamamatsu R8520-06SEL photomultipliers are good candidates for the scintillation readout. The performance of this photomultiplier, used as VUV photosensor in a gas proportional scintillation counter, was investigated. Initial results for the detection of primary and secondary scintillation produced as a result of the interaction of 5.9 keV X-rays in gaseous xenon, at room temperature and at pressures up to 3 bar, are presented. An energy resolution of 8.0% was obtained for secondary scintillation produced by 5.9 keV X-rays. No significant variation of the primary scintillation was observed for different pressures (1, 2 and 3 bar) and for electric fields up to 0.8 V cm(-1) torr(-1) in the drift region, demonstrating negligible recombination luminescence. A primary scintillation yield of 81 +/- 7 photons was obtained for 5.9 keV X-rays, corresponding to a mean energy of 72 +/- 6 eV to produce a primary scintillation photon in xenon.
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HARP Collaboration(Apollonio, M. et al), Burguet-Castell, J., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Martin-Albo, J., Novella, P., et al. (2010). Measurements of forward proton production with incident protons and charged pions on nuclear targets at the CERN Proton Synchroton. Phys. Rev. C, 82(4), 045208–33pp.
Abstract: Measurements of the double-differential proton production cross-section d(2 sigma)/dpd Omega in the range of momentum 0.5 GeV/c <= p < 8.0 GeV/c and angle 0.05 rad <= theta < 0.25 rad in collisions of charged pions and protons on beryllium, carbon, aluminium, copper, tin, tantalum, and lead are presented. The data were taken with the large acceptance HARP detector in the T9 beam line of the CERN Proton Synchrotron. Incident particles were identified by an elaborate system of beam detectors and impinged on a target of 5% of a nuclear interaction length. The tracking and identification of the produced particles was performed using the forward spectrometer of the HARP experiment. Results are obtained for the double-differential cross-sections mainly at four incident beam momenta (3, 5, 8, and 12 GeV/c). Measurements are compared with predictions of the GEANT4 and MARS Monte Carlo generators.
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SciBooNE Collaboration(Kurimoto, Y. et al), Catala-Perez, J., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., & Sorel, M. (2010). Improved measurement of neutral current coherent pi(0) production on carbon in a few-GeV neutrino beam. Phys. Rev. D, 81(11), 111102–6pp.
Abstract: The SciBooNE Collaboration reports a measurement of neutral current coherent pi(0) production on carbon by a muon neutrino beam with average energy 0.8 GeV. The separation of coherent from inclusive pi(0) production has been improved by detecting recoil protons from resonant pi(0) production. We measure the ratio of the neutral current coherent pi(0) production to total charged current cross sections to be 1.16 +/- 0.24) x 10(-2). The ratio of charged current coherent pi(+) to neutral current coherent pi(0) production is calculated to be 0.14(-0.28)(+0.30), using our published charged current coherent pion measurement.
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Freitas, E. D. C., Monteiro, C. M. B., Ball, M., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Lopes, J. A. M., Lux, T., et al. (2010). Secondary scintillation yield in high-pressure xenon gas for neutrinoless double beta decay (0 nu beta beta) search. Phys. Lett. B, 684(4-5), 205–210.
Abstract: The search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0 nu beta beta) is an important topic in contemporary physics with many active experiments. New projects are planning to use high-pressure xenon gas as both source and detection medium. The secondary scintillation processes available in noble gases permit large amplification with negligible statistical fluctuations, offering the prospect of energy resolution approaching the Fano factor limit. This Letter reports results for xenon secondary scintillation yield, at room temperature, as a function of electric field in the gas scintillation gap for pressures ranging from 2 to 10 bar. A Large Area Avalanche Photodiode (LAAPD) collected the VUV secondary scintillation produced in the gas. X-rays directly absorbed in the LAAPD are used as a reference for determining the number of charge carriers produced by the scintillation pulse and, hence, the number of photons impinging the LAAPD. The number of photons produced per drifting electron and per kilovolt, the so-called scintillation amplification parameter, displays a small increase with pressure, ranging from 141 +/- 6 at 2 bar to 170 +/- 10 at 8 bar. In our setup, this Parameter does not increase above 8 bar due to nonnegligible electron attachment. The results are in good agreement with those presented in the literature in the 1 to 3 bar range. The increase of the scintillation amplification parameter with pressure for high gas densities has been also observed in former work at cryogenic temperatures.
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SciBooNE Collaboration(Kurimoto, Y. et al), Catala-Perez, J., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., & Sorel, M. (2010). Measurement of inclusive neutral current pi(0) production on carbon in a few-GeV neutrino beam. Phys. Rev. D, 81(3), 033004–18pp.
Abstract: The SciBooNE Collaboration reports inclusive neutral current neutral pion production by a muon neutrino beam on a polystyrene target (C8H8). We obtain (7.7 +/- 0.5(stat) +/- 0.5(sys)) X 10(-2) as the ratio of the neutral current neutral pion production to total charged current cross section; the mean energy of neutrinos producing detected neutral pions is 1.1 GeV. The result agrees with the Rein-Sehgal model implemented in our neutrino interaction simulation program with nuclear effects. The spectrum shape of the pi(0) momentum and angle agree with the model. We also measure the ratio of the neutral current coherent pion production to total charged current cross section to be (0.7 +/- 0.4) X 10(-2).
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Donini, A., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., & Meloni, D. (2011). The tau-contamination of the golden muon sample at the Neutrino Factory. J. High Energy Phys., 02(2), 095–16pp.
Abstract: We study the contribution of nu(e) -> nu(tau) -> tau -> μtransitions to the wrong-sign muon sample of the golden channel of the Neutrino Factory. Muons from tau decays are not really a background, since they contain information from the oscillation signal, and represent a small fraction of the sample. However, if not properly handled they introduce serious systematic error, in particular if the detector/analysis are sensitive to muons of low energy. This systematic effect is particularly troublesome for large theta(13) >= 1 degrees and prevents the use of the Neutrino Factory as a precision facility for large theta(13). Such a systematic error disappears if the tau contribution to the golden muon sample is taken into account. The fact that the fluxes of the Neutrino Factory are exactly calculable permits the knowledge of the tau sample due to the nu(e) -> nu(tau) oscillation. We then compute the contribution to the muon sample arising from this sample in terms of the apparent muon energy. This requires the computation of a migration matrix M-ij which describes the contributions of the tau neutrinos of a given energy E-i, to the muon neutrinos of an apparent energy E-j. We demonstrate that applying M-ij to the data permits the full correction of the otherwise intolerable systematic error.
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K2K Collaboration(Mariani, C. et al), Cervera-Villanueva, A., Tornero-Lopez, A., Burguet-Castell, J., Catala, J., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., et al. (2011). Measurement of inclusive pi(0) production in the charged-current interactions of neutrinos in a 1.3-GeV wide band beam. Phys. Rev. D, 83(5), 054023–17pp.
Abstract: In this paper, we report on the measurement of the rate of inclusive pi(0) production induced by charged-current neutrino interactions in a C8H8 target at a mean energy of 1.3 GeV in the K2K near detector. Out of a sample of 11 606 charged- current neutrino interactions, we select 479 pi(0) events with two reconstructed photons. We find that the cross section for the inclusive pi(0) production relative to the charged-current quasielastic cross section is (CC)-C-sigma pi(0)/sigma CCQE = 0.426 +/- 0.032 (stat) +/- 0.035 (syst). The energy-dependent cross section ratio is also measured. The results are consistent with previous experiments for exclusive channels on different targets.
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SciBooNE Collaboration(Nakajima, Y. et al), Catala-Perez, J., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., & Sorel, M. (2011). Measurement of inclusive charged current interactions on carbon in a few-GeV neutrino beam. Phys. Rev. D, 83(1), 012005–21pp.
Abstract: We report a measurement of inclusive charged current interactions of muon neutrinos on carbon with an average energy of 0.8 GeV using the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam. We compare our measurement with two neutrino interaction simulations: NEUT and NUANCE. The charged current interaction rates (product of flux and cross section) are extracted by fitting the muon kinematics, with a precision of 6%-15% for the energy dependent and 3% for the energy integrated analyses. We also extract charged current inclusive interaction cross sections from the observed rates, with a precision of 10%-30% for the energy dependent and 8% for the energy integrated analyses. This is the first measurement of the charged current inclusive cross section on carbon around 1 GeV. These results can be used to convert previous SciBooNE cross-section ratio measurements to absolute cross-section values.
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Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Martin-Albo, J., Sorel, M., Ferrario, P., Monrabal, F., Muñoz, J., et al. (2011). Sense and sensitivity of double beta decay experiments. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 007–30pp.
Abstract: The search for neutrinoless double beta decay is a very active field in which the number of proposals for next-generation experiments has proliferated. In this paper we attempt to address both the sense and the sensitivity of such proposals. Sensitivity comes first, by means of proposing a simple and unambiguous statistical recipe to derive the sensitivity to a putative Majorana neutrino mass, m(beta beta). In order to make sense of how the different experimental approaches compare, we apply this recipe to a selection of proposals, comparing the resulting sensitivities. We also propose a “physics-motivated range” (PMR) of the nuclear matrix elements as a unifying criterium between the different nuclear models. The expected performance of the proposals is parametrized in terms of only four numbers: energy resolution, background rate (per unit time, isotope mass and energy), detection efficiency, and beta beta isotope mass. For each proposal, both a reference and an optimistic scenario for the experimental performance are studied. In the reference scenario we find that all the proposals will be able to partially explore the degenerate spectrum, without fully covering it, although four of them (KamLAND-Zen, CUORE, NEXT and EXO) will approach the 50 meV boundary. In the optimistic scenario, we find that CUORE and the xenon-based proposals (KamLAND-Zen, EXO and NEXT) will explore a significant fraction of the inverse hierarchy, with NEXT covering it almost fully. For the long term future, we argue that Xe-136-based experiments may provide the best case for a 1-ton scale experiment, given the potentially very low backgrounds achievable and the expected scalability to large isotope masses.
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T2K Collaboration(Abe, K. et al), Cervera-Villanueva, A., Escudero, L., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Hansen, C., Monfregola, L., et al. (2011). Indication of Electron Neutrino Appearance from an Accelerator-Produced Off-Axis Muon Neutrino Beam. Phys. Rev. Lett., 107(4), 041801–8pp.
Abstract: The T2K experiment observes indications of nu(mu) -> nu(mu) e appearance in data accumulated with 1.43 x 10(20) protons on target. Six events pass all selection criteria at the far detector. In a three-flavor neutrino oscillation scenario with |Delta m(23)(2)| = 2.4 x 10(-3) eV(2), sin(2)2 theta(23) = 1 and sin(2)2 theta(13) = 0, the expected number of such events is 1.5 +/- 0.3(syst). Under this hypothesis, the probability to observe six or more candidate events is 7 x 10(-3), equivalent to 2.5 sigma significance. At 90% C.L., the data are consistent with 0.03(0.04) < sin(2)2 theta(13) < 0.28(0.34) for delta(CP) = 0 and a normal (inverted) hierarchy.
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