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Author Wurm, M. et al; Mena, O.
Title The next-generation liquid-scintillator neutrino observatory LENA Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2012 Publication Astroparticle Physics Abbreviated Journal Astropart Phys.
Volume 35 Issue 11 Pages 685-732
Keywords Neutrino detectors; Liquid-scintillator detectors; Low-energy neutrinos; Proton decay; Longbaseline neutrino beams
Abstract As part of the European LAGUNA design study on a next-generation neutrino detector, we propose the liquid-scintillator detector LENA (Low Energy Neutrino Astronomy) as a multipurpose neutrino observatory. The outstanding successes of the Borexino and KamLAND experiments demonstrate the large potential of liquid-scintillator detectors in low-energy neutrino physics. Low energy threshold, good energy resolution and efficient background discrimination are inherent to the liquid-scintillator technique. A target mass of 50 kt will offer a substantial increase in detection sensitivity. At low energies, the variety of detection channels available in liquid scintillator will allow for an energy and flavor-resolved analysis of the neutrino burst emitted by a galactic Supernova. Due to target mass and background conditions, LENA will also be sensitive to the faint signal of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background. Solar metallicity, time-variation in the solar neutrino flux and deviations from MSW-LMA survival probabilities can be investigated based on unprecedented statistics. Low background conditions allow to search for dark matter by observing rare annihilation neutrinos. The large number of events expected for geoneutrinos will give valuable information on the abundances of Uranium and Thorium and their relative ratio in the Earth's crust and mantle. Reactor neutrinos enable a high-precision measurement of solar mixing parameters. A strong radioactive or pion decay-at-rest neutrino source can be placed close to the detector to investigate neutrino oscillations for short distances and sub-MeV to MeV energies. At high energies, LENA will provide a new lifetime limit for the SUSY-favored proton decay mode into kaon and antineutrino, surpassing current experimental limits by about one order of magnitude. Recent studies have demonstrated that a reconstruction of momentum and energy of GeV particles is well feasible in liquid scintillator. Monte Carlo studies on the reconstruction of the complex event topologies found for neutrino interactions at multi-GeV energies have shown promising results. If this is confirmed. LENA might serve as far detector in a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment currently investigated in LAGUNA-LBNO.
Address [Wurm, Michael; Bick, Daniel; Hagner, Caren; Lorenz, Sebastian] Univ Hamburg, Inst Expt Phys, Hamburg, Germany, Email: michael.wurm@desy.de
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Elsevier Science Bv Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0927-6505 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes WOS:000304787800001 Approved no
Is ISI yes International Collaboration yes
Call Number IFIC @ pastor @ Serial 1054
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Author Archidiacono, M.; Giusarma, E.; Melchiorri, A.; Mena, O.
Title Dark radiation in extended cosmological scenarios Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2012 Publication Physical Review D Abbreviated Journal Phys. Rev. D
Volume 86 Issue 4 Pages 043509 - 7pp
Keywords
Abstract Recent cosmological data have provided evidence for a “dark” relativistic background at high statistical significance. Parameterized in terms of the number of relativistic degrees of freedom N-eff, however, the current data seem to indicate a higher value than the one expected in the standard scenario based on three active neutrinos. This dark radiation component can be characterized not only by its abundance but also by its clustering properties, as its effective sound speed and its viscosity parameter. It is therefore crucial to study the correlations among the dark radiation properties and key cosmological parameters, as the dark energy equation of state or the running of the scalar spectral index, with current and future cosmic microwave background data. We find that dark radiation with viscosity parameters different from their standard values may be misinterpreted as an evolving dark energy component or as a running spectral index in the power spectrum of primordial fluctuations.
Address [Archidiacono, Maria; Melchiorri, Alessandro] Univ Roma La Sapienza, Dept Phys, I-00185 Rome, Italy
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Amer Physical Soc Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1550-7998 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes WOS:000307276500002 Approved no
Is ISI yes International Collaboration yes
Call Number IFIC @ pastor @ Serial 1122
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Author Blennow, M.; Fernandez-Martinez, E.; Mena, O.; Redondo, J.; Serra, E.P.
Title Asymmetric Dark Matter and Dark Radiation Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2012 Publication Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Abbreviated Journal J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.
Volume 07 Issue 7 Pages 022 - 23pp
Keywords dark matter theory; particle physics – cosmology connection; physics of the early universe
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.
Address [Blennow, Mattias] Max Planck Inst Kernphys, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany, Email: Mattias.Blennow@mpi-hd.mpg.de;
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Iop Publishing Ltd Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1475-7516 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes WOS:000307079600033 Approved no
Is ISI yes International Collaboration yes
Call Number IFIC @ pastor @ Serial 1165
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Author de Putter, R.; Mena, O.; Giusarma, E.; Ho, S.; Cuesta, A.; Seo, H.J.; Ross, A.J.; White, M.; Bizyaev, D.; Brewington, H.; Kirkby, D.; Malanushenko, E.; Malanushenko, V.; Oravetz, D.; Pan, K.K.; Percival, W.J.; Ross, N.P.; Schneider, D.P.; Shelden, A.; Simmons, A.; Snedden, S.
Title New Neutrino Mass Bounds from SDSS-III Data Release 8 Photometric Luminous Galaxies Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2012 Publication Astrophysical Journal Abbreviated Journal Astrophys. J.
Volume 761 Issue 1 Pages 12 - 12pp
Keywords cosmological parameters; cosmology: observations; large-scale structure of universe
Abstract We present neutrino mass bounds using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts measured from Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Data Release 8. The galaxies have photometric redshifts between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65 and cover 10,000 deg(2), thus probing a volume of 3 h(-3) Gpc(3) and enabling tight constraints to be derived on the amount of dark matter in the form of massive neutrinos. A new bound on the sum of neutrino masses Sigma m nu < 0.27 eV, at the 95% confidence level (CL), is obtained after combining our sample of galaxies, which we call “CMASS,” with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) seven-year cosmic microwave background data and the most recent measurement of the Hubble parameter from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This constraint is obtained with a conservative multipole range of 30 < l < 200 in order to minimize nonlinearities, and a free bias parameter in each of the four redshift bins. We study the impact of assuming this linear galaxy bias model using mock catalogs and find that this model causes a small (similar to 1 sigma-1.5 sigma) bias in Omega(DM)h(2). For this reason, we also quote neutrino bounds based on a conservative galaxy bias model containing additional, shot-noise-like free parameters. In this conservative case, the bounds are significantly weakened, e. g., Sigma m(nu) < 0.38 eV (95% CL) for WMAP+HST+CMASS (l(max) = 200). We also study the dependence of the neutrino bound on the multipole range (l(max) = 150 versus l(max) = 200) and on which combination of data sets is included as a prior. The addition of supernova and/or baryon acoustic oscillation data does not significantly improve the neutrino mass bound once the HST prior is included. A companion paper describes the construction of the angular power spectra in detail and derives constraints on a general cosmological model, including the dark energy equation of state w and the spatial curvature Omega(K), while a second companion paper presents a measurement of the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations from the same data set. All three works are based on the catalog by Ross et al.
Address [de Putter, Roland] Univ Barcelona, ICC, IEEC UB, E-08028 Barcelona, Spain
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Iop Publishing Ltd Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0004-637x ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes WOS:000311748800012 Approved no
Is ISI yes International Collaboration yes
Call Number IFIC @ pastor @ Serial 1262
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Author Ho, S. et al; de Putter, R.; Mena, O.
Title Clustering of Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Photometric Luminous Galaxies: The Measurement, Systematics and Cosmological Implications Type Journal Article
Year (down) 2012 Publication Astrophysical Journal Abbreviated Journal Astrophys. J.
Volume 761 Issue 1 Pages 14 - 24pp
Keywords cosmological parameters; dark energy; dark matter; distance scale
Abstract The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveyed 14,555 deg(2), and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present a study of galaxy clustering using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts, spanning between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65, constructed from the SDSS using methods described in Ross et al. This data set spans 11,000 deg(2) and probes a volume of 3 h(-3) Gpc(3), making it the largest volume ever used for galaxy clustering measurements. We describe in detail the construction of the survey window function and various systematics affecting our measurement. With such a large volume, high-precision cosmological constraints can be obtained given careful control and understanding of the observational systematics. We present a novel treatment of the observational systematics and its applications to the clustering signals from the data set. In this paper, we measure the angular clustering using an optimal quadratic estimator at four redshift slices with an accuracy of similar to 15%, with a bin size of delta(l) = 10 on scales of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs; at l similar to 40-400). We also apply corrections to the power spectra due to systematics and derive cosmological constraints using the full shape of the power spectra. For a flat Lambda CDM model, when combined with cosmic microwave background Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 (WMAP7) and H-0 constraints from using 600 Cepheids observed by Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3; HST), we find Omega(Lambda) = 0.73 +/- 0.019 and H-0 to be 70.5 +/- 1.6 s(-1) Mpc(-1) km. For an open Lambda CDM model, when combined with WMAP7 + HST, we find Omega(K) = 0.0035 +/- 0.0054, improved over WMAP7+HST alone by 40%. For a wCDM model, when combined with WMAP7+HST+ SN, we find w = -1.071 +/- 0.078, and H-0 to be 71.3 +/- 1.7 s(-1) Mpc(-1) km, which is competitive with the latest large-scale structure constraints from large spectroscopic surveys such as the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7) and WiggleZ. We also find that systematic-corrected power spectra give consistent constraints on cosmological models when compared with pre-systematic correction power spectra in the angular scales of interest. The SDSS-III Data Release 8 (SDSS-III DR8) Angular Clustering Data allow a wide range of investigations into the cosmological model, cosmic expansion (via BAO), Gaussianity of initial conditions, and neutrino masses. Here, we refer to our companion papers for further investigations using the clustering data. Our calculation of the survey selection function, systematics maps, and likelihood function for the COSMOMC package will be released at http://portal.nersc.gov/project/boss/galaxy/photoz/.
Address [Ho, Shirley; White, Martin; Schlegel, David J.; Seljak, Uros; Reid, Beth; Ross, Nicholas P.] Univ Calif Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Natl Lab, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA, Email: cwho@lbl.gov
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Iop Publishing Ltd Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0004-637x ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes WOS:000311748800014 Approved no
Is ISI yes International Collaboration yes
Call Number IFIC @ pastor @ Serial 1263
Permanent link to this record