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DOE OSTI2024

Blueprints for Training Information Bottlenecks for Collider Analyses

Dimensionality reduction is a crucial aspect of data analysis in high energy physics, even if accompanied by information loss. Several methods, including histogram- and kernel-based analyses, are only computationally feasible for low-dimensional data. Furthermore, simulation models used in HEP can often only be validated for low-dimensional data. We provide several blueprints for using machine learning to create low-dimensional data representations (continuous event variables and discrete classification labels) for use in signal discovery and parameter estimation tasks. We also describe how to design the learned representation to facilitate a) searches with unknown model parameters and b) validation of simulation models in data control regions.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Deployment of Water-Based Liquid Scintillator in ANNIE

ANNIE is a 26-ton water Cherenkov detector at Fermilab. Its main physics goals are to perform a measurement of the neutron yield from neutrino-nucleus interactions, as well as a measurement of the charged-current cross section of muon neutrinos. An equally important focus is the research and development of new detector technologies and target media. Specifically, water-based liquid scintillator (WbLS) is of interest as a novel detector medium, as it allows for the simultaneous detection of Cherenkov light and scintillation. This poster discusses the deployment of a WbLS filled vessel SANDI in ANNIE and the detection of both Cherenkov light and scintillation from the WbLS.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Searches for Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNL) in CMS

The smallness of neutrino masses in conjunction with the observed flavor oscillations in the neutrino sector can be hinting to physics beyond the standard model. These observations can be naturally accommodated by the so-called "seesaw" mechanism, in which new Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNL) are postulated. Additionally, several HNL models provide a DM candidate or include a possible explanation for the observed baryon asymmetry. This talk presents an comprehensive overview of the CMS HNL program with a focus on the new experimental results as shown in a recently published review paper by CMS.The talk will highlight several novel and complementary approaches using both prompt and long-lived signatures using the full Run-II data-set collected at the LHC.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Updates to the NuMI Flux Simulation at MicroBooNE (V.1.0)

The NuMI flux prediction being used by all experiments at Fermilab that are sensitive to the NuMI beam is based on Geant v4.9.2.03 (G4.9) and uses the default FTFP-BERT physics list with no custom cross sections. In order to correct these predictions to match world data, PPFX, the Package to Predict the FluX, is used to reweight the flux prediction. In kinematic regions of overlap between the prediction and data, mainly NA49 measurements are used to correct for various hadron production processes. Specifcally, PPFX looks at the entire ancestry chain of the neutrino, up to the incident 120 GeV proton beam, and applies corrections for various hadron interactions based on said data. These corrections are implemented as a function of the Feynman-x (x F ) and transverse momentum (p T ) of the incident hadron.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Participation in Intensity Frontier Neutrino Physics (closeout report)

The flagship currently-running experiment at Fermilab is the NuMI Off-axis νe Appearance (NOvA) experiment. Together with the (complementary) T2K experiment in Japan, it provides the opportunity for improved measurement precision on neutrino mixing parameters and addresses topics of strong interest: whether neutrino masses follow a normal (NH) or inverted (IH) hierarchy; whether the ν 3 state contains a symmetric mixture of ν µ and ν τ (“maximal mixing,” pointing to a possible new symmetry of nature), or, if not, what is the octant of θ 23 ; and whether neutrino mixing violates CP symmetry. Recent results from both experiments suggest we may be on the verge of important discoveries. Towards the end of the decade, these experiments will be superseded by DUNE in the U.S. and HyperK in Japan.

2x2↗
DOE OSTI2025

Design and Construction of the CMS Outer Tracker for the Phase-2 Upgrade

The High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) is expected to deliver an integrated luminosity of 3000-4000~fb$^{-1}$ after 10 years of operation with peak instantaneous luminosity reaching about 5-7.5$\times10^{34}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$. During Long Shutdown 3, several components of the CMS detector will undergo major changes, called Phase-2 upgrades, to be able to operate in the challenging environment of the HL-LHC. The current CMS tracker will be replaced. The Phase-2 Outer Tracker (OT) will have high radiation tolerance, higher granularity, and the capability to handle higher data rates. Moreover, the OT will provide tracking information to the Level-1 trigger, for the first time at hadron colliders, allowing trigger rates to be kept at a sustainable level without sacrificing physics potential. For this, the OT will be made of modules with two closely spaced silicon sensors read out by front-end ASICs, which can correlate hits in the two sensors creating short track segments (stubs), used for tracking in the L1 track finder. The modules come in two flavors: strip-strip (2S) and pixel-strip (PS), containing different sensor configurations and multiple ASICs. This contribution will present the design of the Phase-2 OT, the first results with pre-production devices, and the quality assurance procedures used to ensure the functionality of the modules: from fulfilling the precision specification of the module assembly procedure to ensuring the proper communication among the module's ASICs.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Towards Constraining Dark Sector $e^+e^-$ Solutions to the Low Energy Excess at MicroBooNE

In recent years there has been a rapidly growing interest in “dark sector” physics that is accessible through neutrino experiments, motivated in part by long-standing experimental anomalies in short-baseline neutrino experiments. In many dark sector models, new unstable particles can be abundantly produced in neutrino-nucleus interactions. If these new states decay to photons or $e^+e^-$ pairs with $Ο$(100) MeV energies, their signature can mimic the excess of electron-like events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment. While the origin of many of these theories was explaining the MiniBooNE excess, their popularity in the community has grown and they now represent a broad class of interesting models in their own right, outside of the short-baseline anomalies. This note describes two ongoing efforts in MicroBooNE investigating such dark sector models.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

First Demonstration of a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber Based Search for Intranuclear Neutron-Antineutron Transitions and Annihilation in $^{40}$Ar using the MicroBooNE Detector

We present a novel methodology to search for intranuclear neutron-antineutron transition ($n\rightarrow\bar{n}$) followed by $\bar{n}$-nucleon annihilation within an $^{40}$Ar nucleus, using the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) detector. A discovery of $n\rightarrow\bar{n}$ transition or a new best limit on the lifetime of this process would either constitute physics beyond the Standard Model or greatly constrain theories of baryogenesis, respectively. The approach presented in this paper makes use of deep learning methods to select $n\rightarrow\bar{n}$ events based on their unique features and differentiate them from cosmogenic backgrounds. The achieved signal and background efficiencies are (70.22$\pm$6.04)\% and (0.0020$\pm$0.0003)\%, respectively. A demonstration of a search is performed with a data set corresponding to an exposure of $3.32 \times10^{26}\,$neutron-years, and where the background rate is constrained through direct measurement, assuming the presence of a negligible signal. With this approach, no excess of events over the background prediction is observed, setting a demonstrative lower bound on the $n\rightarrow\bar{n}$ lifetime in $^{40}$Ar of $\tau_{\textrm{m}} \gtrsim 1.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Calibration and Timing Performance of the Light Detection System in the ICARUS Detector

ICARUS is the largest Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) in operation and serves as the Far Detector of the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program at Fermilab. It aims to investigate the possible existence of sterile neutrinos with $\Delta m^2 \approx \SI{1}{eV^2}$ using the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and explore physics beyond the Standard Model with the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam. The ICARUS light detection system, comprising 360 TPB-coated large-area Photo-Multiplier Tubes (PMTs), is crucial for triggering and event reconstruction. Due to its shallow installation, the detector is exposed to a high flux of cosmic rays, necessitating precise timing to reject background events and align neutrino interactions with the beam time profile. This talk will detail the timing inter-calibration procedures for the ICARUS light detection system, which achieve sub-nanosecond resolution. Additionally, the performance of the system in reconstructing the timing of neutrino interactions from the BNB and NuMI beams will be discussed. The results highlight the effectiveness of the ICARUS light detection system in enhancing the detector's capability for precise and reliable neutrino selection.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Calibration and Timing Performance of the Light Detection System in the ICARUS Detector

ICARUS is the largest Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) in operation and serves as the Far Detector of the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program at Fermilab. It aims to investigate the possible existence of sterile neutrinos with $\Delta m^2 \approx 1 \,\mathrm{eV^2}$ using the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and explore physics beyond the Standard Model with the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam. The ICARUS light detection system, comprising 360 TPB-coated large-area Photo-Multiplier Tubes (PMTs), is crucial for triggering and event reconstruction. Due to its shallow installation, the detector is exposed to a high flux of cosmic rays, necessitating precise timing to reject background events and align neutrino interactions with the beam time profile. This talk will detail the timing inter-calibration procedures for the ICARUS light detection system, which achieve sub-nanosecond resolution. Additionally, the performance of the system in reconstructing the timing of neutrino interactions from the BNB and NuMI beams will be discussed. The results highlight the effectiveness of the ICARUS light detection system in enhancing the detector's capability for precise and reliable neutrino selection.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

New Advances in Optical Stochastic Cooling

Recently, Optical Stochastic Cooling (OSC) became the first demonstrated method for ultra-high-bandwidth stochastic cooling. The initial experiments at Fermilab’s IOTA ring explored the essential physics of the method and demonstrated cooling, heating and manipulation of beams and single particles. Having been validated in practice, with continued development, OSC carries the potential for dramatic advances in the state-of-the-art performance and flexibility for beam cooling and control. The ongoing program at Fermilab is now focused on the development of an OSC system that includes high-gain optical amplification, which promises a two-order-of-magnitude increase in the strength of the OSC force. In this talk, we briefly review the results of the initial experimental campaign, describe the status of the conceptual and hardware designs for the amplified OSC system, report initial experimental results of our high-gain amplifier development, and explore near-term operational plans and use cases.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Source size of x rays from self-modulated laser wakefield accelerators

A comparative study of x-ray sources generated with different mechanisms from self-modulated laser wakefield acceleration (SM-LWFA) electrons was performed to compare the source size or spatial resolution for use in high energy density science applications. We examine the source size of betatron, inverse Compton scattering, and bremsstrahlung radiation with a Fresnel diffraction based formalism and a modified x-ray ray tracing model. We observe the dependence of source size on the radiation generation process, laser parameters, and compare to what is possible in other regimes of LWFA, as well as current methods. This information is significant as we begin to explore the use of light sources driven by SM-LWFA for use as a diagnostic at large-scale laser facilities where blowout regime LWFA is not possible.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Track vs Shower Discrimination in the Event Reconstruction of the ICARUS Experiment

The ICARUS collaboration has employed the 760-ton T600 liquid argon TPC detector in a successful three-year physics run at the underground LNGS laboratory, performing a sensitive search for LSND-like anomalous appearance in the CERN Neutrino to Gran Sasso beam, which contributed to the constraints on the allowed neutrino oscillation parameters to a narrow region around 1 eV. After a significant overhaul at CERN, the T600 detector has been installed at Fermilab. The detector commissioning phase lasted until June 2022, then ICARUS moved to data taking for neutrino oscillation physics collecting events from the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam off-axis. The initial experiment goals are to either confirm or refute the claim by Neutrino-4 short-baseline reactor experiment, perform measurements of neutrino cross sections with the NuMI beam and several Beyond Standard Model searches. Then, ICARUS will jointly search for evidence of sterile neutrinos with the Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND). In this contribution, we discuss recent changes to the standard TPC event reconstruction that uses Pandora, a pattern recognition software common to liquid argon-based detectors. In particular, we performed a new training of the Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) employed to separate track-like and shower-like reconstructed particles using Monte Carlo simulations of neutrino events from BNB in ICARUS. We compare the discrimination capabilities of the old and new BDT training and discuss further improvements of this algorithm.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Status of ICARUS NUMI Interaction Cross-Section Analysis

The ICARUS experiment, utilizing Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LAr TPC) technology, has been installed at Fermilab in Chicago, Illinois, following its initial operation in Italy and subsequent refurbishment at CERN. ICARUS completed commissioning in June 2022. Currently, the experiment is in the phase of analyzing data from its two runs of physics data acquisition and gearing up for the third run. While its primary objective is to function as the far detector of the Short Baseline Neutrino program (SBN), seeking sterile neutrino signatures, ICARUS also offers diverse physics capabilities, including searches beyond the standard model and measurements of cross-sections. In addition to being exposed to the common Booster Neutrino (BNB) beamline, ICARUS also receives off-axis neutrinos from the Main Injector (NuMI) beam. Due to the off-axis angle between NuMI and ICARUS, coupled with contributions from both pion and kaon decays to neutrino fluxes, interactions of NuMI neutrinos within ICARUS can be detected over a range of several GeV in energy. These interactions present opportunities for crucial cross-section measurements and model tests within an energy range that overlaps both the SBN oscillation search and a portion of the DUNE spectrum. This poster presentation will delve into our efforts to conduct a muon-neutrino cross-section measurement, where the signal is defined by events with no pions produced in the final state of the interaction, along with some preliminary muon-neutrino inclusive measurements. Additionally, it will provide updates on the current status and future plans, including reconstruction, selection, and analysis procedures.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Optimal Transport for e/$\pi^0$ Particle Classification in LArTPC Neutrino Experiments

Separation of electron signals from $\pi^0$ backgrounds is crucial for neutrino oscillation measurements and searches for Beyond Standard Model (BSM) physics in current and future Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) experiments. e/$\pi^0$ separation has been a reconstruction challenge since both e and $\pi^0$ present as electromagnetic showers, and often only one out of the two showers produced by $\pi^0$ is reconstructed correctly. This research aims to improve the performance of e/$\pi^0$ separation using optimal transport (OT), by leveraging on the topological differences in the showers produced by the two particles. OT is a method which compares two distributions by finding the most efficient way to transform, or “move” from one to the other. This work uses the MicroBooNE open samples public dataset to test the e/$\pi^0$ separation performance of the method on events which incorporate realistic modeling of LArTPC detector response. Reconstructed 3D energy deposits are projected onto a plane perpendicular to the primary shower, allowing OT to better detect the topological differences between the two types of particles without the need to separately reconstruct all the showers in the events. Different distance metrics for OT are tested and preliminary results on e/$\pi^0$ separation are presented.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Lambda baryon production in neutrino-nucleus interactions and light signals reconstruction in the Short-Baseline Near Detector

The field of neutrino physics is nowadays entering the era of precision measurements, with new detectors capable of capturing neutrino interactions with unprecedented detail and high intensity neutrino beams. Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) have become one of the main neutrino detection technologies, providing excellent imaging capabilities and particle identification. The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) at Fermilab is a LArTPC experiment designed to capture neutrinos from the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB). Its proximity to the beam target (110\,m) and large size (112\,ton) enable the recording of millions of neutrino interactions annually. SBND provides the highest statistics worldwide for neutrino-argon cross-section measurements, facilitating the study of rare channels like Cabibbo-suppressed quasielastic hyperon production. Specifically, this thesis focuses on neutral $\Lambda$ baryon production for which only tens of events have been observed up to date. Our work introduces a novel selection strategy leveraging LArTPC imaging capabilities to identify the distinctive decay signatures of $\Lambda$ baryons, enhancing sensitivity to this channel. Besides being a very mature technology, LArTPCs are an evolving technology. Part of the focus of the new developments lies in harnessing the potential of scintillation light signals. The Photon Detection System (PDS) in SBND has been designed to provide an efficient detection of the scintillation light, representing a major R\&D opportunity in the LArTPC community. Its design provides a high and more uniform light yield, an excellent timing resolution and an independent 3D reconstruction of the events, including the drift coordinate, using exclusively the light signals. This work presents the first comprehensive study of the SBND PDS capabilities. The new developments in the simulation and reconstruction of the light signals in SBND are presented. The whole chain is applied to accurately tag neutrino events through timing information, with a predicted resolution $\mathcal{O}$(2\,ns), and ultimately retrieve the pulse structure of the BNB.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

GEANT4 Simulations on Faraday Cup Design for PIP-II Laser Wire Scanner System

The PIP-II accelerator upgrade at Fermilab represents a groundbreaking leap forward in high-energy physics research. This ambitious initiative involves enhancing Fermilab's accelerator complex by replacing the current linear accelerator with a warm front end (WFE) capable of accelerating H- beams up to 2.1 MeV. Subsequently, a superconducting linac further accelerates these beams up to 800 MeV. To precisely measure the transverse beam profile, a combination of traditional wire scanners at the WFE section and Laser wire scanners along the superconducting linac are planned for implementation. This investigation centers on refining the Faraday cup design for the PIP-II Laser wire scanners by utilizing GEANT4, a Monte Carlo simulation toolkit. Leveraging this method enables a comprehensive analysis of particle trajectories, energy deposition, secondary electron emission, backscattering, etc., facilitating optimization through adjustments to cup geometries, materials, and placement to maximize its efficiency.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Accelerating the Structure Exploration of Diverse Bi–Pt Nanoclusters via Physics‐Informed Machine Learning Potential and Particle Swarm Optimization

Bimetallic Bi–Pt nanoclusters exhibit diverse structural motifs, including core-shell, Janus, and mixed alloy configurations, due to the unique bonding characteristics between Bi and Pt atoms. Using density functional theory refinements from ChIMES physically machine-learned potential and CALYPSO particle swarm optimization global searches, 34 Bi20-Pt20 nanoclusters are systematically classified. The results reveal that Bi atoms predominantly occupy surface sites, driven by charge transfer effects. Cohesive energy trends alone prove insufficient for structure differentiation, necessitating a data-driven approach employing principal component analysis and K-means clustering. Furthermore, vibrational, electronic, and infrared spectral analyses provide additional insights into structure-property relationships. The findings offer an original framework for the automated classification and analysis of bimetallic nanoclusters, enhancing the understanding of their stability and functional properties.

bimetallic nanoparticles↗