Mass spectrometric analyses of high performance polymers to assess their radiopurity as ultra low background materials for rare event physics detectors
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Grate, Jay W. (ORCID:0000000221638383)↗
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Investigating Particle Phase State Dependencies during a Historic Pacific Northwest Wildfire Event
The function and lifetime of an atmospheric particle are greatly dependent upon its phase state. Studying particle phase states from specific ambient source types is often challenging due to uncontrolled environmental conditions and multiple source contributions. However, a historic Pacific Northwest wildfire event occurred in September 2020, providing a rare opportunity to study a pseudo-single particle type ambient sample (i.e., wildfire) over time. Sampling was performed in Richland, Washington, capturing aged particles from shifting wildfire sources. In addition to source variability, temporal variation in wildfire particle phase state was observed from single particle analyses. Despite this, single particle elemental compositions were homogenous over time (=87% carbonaceous) with no significant temporal variation in organic functional group abundances within individual particles either (e.g., 4% relative standard deviation in alkene contributions). While particle composition is indeed known to affect phase state, water uptake appeared to be the most significant contributor to phase state variability amongst single particles here, as particle aspect ratios (related to phase state) linearly correlated with ambient relative humidity during sampling (R2 = 0.65). Therefore, while limited to a case study, meteorological considerations are found to convey greater comparative importance than particle composition for aged particle phase state predictions.
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
AL-ASMR: Active Learning of Atomistic Surrogate Models for Rare Events
Atomistic simulation with artificial intelligence (AI) is an emerging tool for understanding materials' properties and behaviors and predicting novel materials with optimized/targeted properties. Neural network potentials (NNPs) are outstanding in this field as they have shown a comparable accuracy to ab initio electronic structure calculations for reproducing potential energy surfaces while being several orders of magnitude faster. However, such NNPs can perform poorly outside of their training domain and typically fail catastrophically in the prediction of rare events in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. For effective AL loops to distinguish the informative data from enhanced sampled configurations, we developed a decision engine by configurational similarity and uncertainty quantification (UQ) with data augmentation.
Jung, Gang Seob↗
Towards The Development of Rare Event Simulation Methods For Improved Mechanistic Understanding of Mineral Surface Reactivity
This is the final technical report DE-SC0018439: "Towards The Development of Rare Event Simulation Methods For Improved Mechanistic Understanding of Mineral Surface Reactivity". Under this effort we have devised a Forward Flux Sampling algorithm that utilizes time as a reaction progress coordinate.
58 GEOSCIENCES↗
The rate of extreme coronal line emitters in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey LOWZ sample
Extreme coronal line emitters (ECLEs) are a rare class of galaxy that exhibit strong, high-ionization iron coronal emission lines in their spectra. In some cases, these lines are transient and may be the result of tidal disruption event (TDEs). To test this connection, we calculate the rate of variable ECLEs (vECLEs) at redshift $\sim 0.3$. We search for ECLEs in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) LOWZ sample and discover two candidate ECLEs. Using follow-up spectra from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph, and mid-infrared observations from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, we determine that one of these galaxies is a vECLE. Using this galaxy, we calculate the galaxy-normalized vECLE rate at redshift $\sim 0.3$ to be $R_\mathrm{G}=1.6~^{+3.8}_{-1.4}\times 10^{-6}~\mathrm{galaxy}^{-1}~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$and the mass-normalized rate to be $R_\mathrm{M}=7~^{+16}_{-6}\times 10^{-18}~\mathrm{M_\odot ^{-1}}~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. This is then converted to a volumetric rate of $R_\mathrm{V}=1.8~^{+4.5}_{-1.5}\times 10^{-9}~\mathrm{Mpc}^{-3}~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. Formally, the LOWZ vECLE rates are $2 \!-\! 4$ times lower than the rates calculated from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Legacy sample at redshift $\sim 0.1$. However, given the large uncertainties on both measurements, they are consistent with each other at $1\sigma$. Both the galaxy-normalized and volumetric rates are one to two orders of magnitude lower than TDE rates from the literature, consistent with vECLEs being caused by $5 \!-\! 20$ per cent of all TDEs.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
Geant4 Event Biasing and Fast Simulation
Geant4 offers advanced event biasing techniques to significantly accelerate simulations involving rare events. Various biasing methods, such as leading particle selection, cross-section biasing, radioactive decay enhancement, and bremsstrahlung splitting, enable efficient event sampling, though they require careful handling. Additionally, Geant4 provides a Fast Simulation Interface, allowing the replacement of standard processes in specific region and for selected particles, enabling faster execution or external code integration. Applications of fast simulation include electromagnetic shower modeling in calorimeters, machine learning inference, and offloading tasks to specialized hardware like GPUs, making Geant4 a powerful tool for computationally demanding simulations.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
Search for rare decays B + → D s ( * ) + η , D s ( * ) + K ¯ 0 , D + η , and D + K 0
We present a study of rare decay modes B + → D$^{+}_{s}$ℎ 0 , B + → D$^{*}_{s}$ + ℎ 0 , and B + → D + ℎ 0 , where ℎ 0 denotes the neutral meson η or K 0 , using a data sample of (772 ±10) ×10 6 B$\overline{B}$ events produced at the Υ(4S) resonance. The data were collected by the Belle detector operating at the asymmetric-energy KEKB collider. We find no evidence for these decays, so we set upper limits at the 90% confidence level on the branching fractions of , , and D + ℎ 0 decay modes. Along with these rare decay modes, we report improved measurements of the color-suppressed decay branching fractions $\mathscr{B}$($\overline{B}$ 0 →D 0 η) =(26.6 ±1.2 ±2.1) ×10 -5 and $\mathscr{B}$($\overline{B}$) 0 →D 0 $\overline{K}$ 0 ) =(5.6 ±0.5 ±0.2) ×10 -5 . The first and second quoted uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
Gargantuan Hail in Argentina
On 8 February 2018, a supercell storm produced gargantuan (>15 cm or >6 inches in maximum dimension) hail as it moved over the heavily populated city of Villa Carlos Paz in Cordoba Province, Argentina, South America. Observations of gargantuan hail are quite rare, but the large population density here yielded numerous witnesses and social media pictures and videos from this event that document multiple large hailstones. The storm was also sampled by the newly installed operational polarimetric C-band radar in Cordoba. During the RELAMPAGO campaign, the authors interviewed local residents about their accounts of the storm, and uncovered additional social media video and photographs revealing extremely large hail at multiple locations in town. This article documents the case, including the meteorological conditions supporting the storm (with the aid of a high-resolution WRF simulation), the storm's observed radar signatures, and three noteworthy hailstones observed by residents. These hailstones include a freezer-preserved 4.48-inch (11.38-cm) maximum dimension stone that was scanned with a 3D infrared laser scanner, a 7.1-inch (18-cm) maximum dimension stone, and a hailstone photogrammetrically estimated to be between 7.4 and 9.3 inches (18.8-23.7-cm) in maximum dimension, which is close to or exceeds the world record for maximum dimension. Such a well-observed case is an important step forward in understanding environments and storms that produce gargantuan hail, and ultimately how to anticipate and detect such extreme events.
Kumjian, Matthew R.↗
Predicting rare events using neural networks and short-trajectory data
Estimating the likelihood, timing, and nature of events is a major goal of modeling stochastic dynamical systems. When the event is rare in comparison with the timescales of simulation and/or measurement needed to resolve the elemental dynamics, accurate prediction from direct observations becomes challenging. In such cases a more effective approach is to cast statistics of interest as solutions to Feynman-Kac equations (partial differential equations). Here, we develop an approach to solve Feynman-Kac equations by training neural networks on short-trajectory data. Our approach is based on a Markov approximation but otherwise avoids assumptions about the underlying model and dynamics. This makes it applicable to treating complex computational models and observational data. Additionally, we illustrate the advantages of our method using a low-dimensional model that facilitates visualization, and this analysis motivates an adaptive sampling strategy that allows on-the-fly identification of and addition of data to regions important for predicting the statistics of interest. Finally, we demonstrate that we can compute accurate statistics for a 75-dimensional model of sudden stratospheric warming. This system provides a stringent test bed for our method.
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
Proposal for Direct Detection of Ultralight Dark Matter via Charged Lepton Flavor Violation
We propose a dark matter direct-detection strategy using charged particle decays at accelerator-based experiments. If ultralight ( m ϕ ≪ eV ) dark matter has a misalignment abundance, its local field oscillates in time at a frequency set by its mass. If it also couples to flavor-changing neutral currents, rare exotic decays such as μ → e ϕ ′ and τ → e ( μ ) ϕ ′ inherit this modulation. Focusing on such charged lepton flavor-violating decays, we show that sufficient event samples can enable detection of ultralight dark matter candidates at Mu3e, Belle-II, and FCC-ee.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
The Kangaroo’s First Hop: The Early Fast Cooling Phase of EP250108a/SN 2025kg
Fast X-ray transients are a rare and poorly understood population of events. Previously difficult to detect in real time, the launch of the Einstein Probe with its Wide-field X-ray Telescope has led to a rapid expansionof the sample and allowed the exploration of these transients across the electromagnetic spectrum. EP250108a is a recently detected example linked to an optical counterpart, SN 2025kg, or “the kangaroo.” Together with a companion Letter we present our observing campaign and analysis of this event. In this letter, we focus on the early evolution of the optical counterpart over the first 6 days, including our measurement of the redshift of z = 0.17641. We compare to other supernovae and fast transients showing similar features, finding significant similarities with SN 2006aj and SN 2020bvc, and show that the source is well modelled by a rapidly expanding cooling blackbody. We show the observed X-ray and radio properties are consistent with a collapsar-powered jet that is low energy (≲10 51 erg) and/or fails to break out of the dense material surrounding it. While we examine the possibility that the optical emission emerges from the shock produced as the supernova ejecta expand into a dense shell of circumstellar material, due to our X-ray and radio inferences, we favour a model where it arises from a shocked cocoon resulting from a trapped jet. This makes SN 2025 one of the few examples of this currently observationally rare event.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
An investigation of the very rare ${K}^{+}\to {\pi}^{+}\nu \overline{\nu}$ decay
The NA62 experiment reports an investigation of the ${K}^{+}\to {\pi}^{+}\nu \overline{\nu}$ mode from a sample of ${K}^{+}$ decays collected in 2017 at the CERN SPS. The experiment has achieved a single event sensitivity of (0.389 ± 0.024) × 10 -10 , corresponding to 2.2 events assuming the Standard Model branching ratio of (8.4 ± 1.0) × 10 -11 . Two signal candidates are observed with an expected background of 1.5 events. Combined with the result of a similar analysis conducted by NA62 on a smaller data set recorded in 2016, the collaboration now reports an upper limit of 1.78 × 10 -10 for the ${K}^{+}\to {\pi}^{+}\nu \overline{\nu}$ branching ratio at 90% CL. This, together with the corresponding 68% CL measurement of (${0.48}_{-0.48}^{+0.72}$) × 10 -10 , are currently the most precise results worldwide, and are able to constrain some New Physics models that predict large enhancements still allowed by previous measurements.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
Search for Rare b → d ℓ + ℓ − Transitions at Belle
We present the results of a search for the b → d ℓ + ℓ − flavor-changing neutral-current rare decays B + , 0 → ( η , ω , π + , 0 , ρ + , 0 ) e + e − and B + , 0 → ( η , ω , π 0 , ρ + ) μ + μ − using a 711 fb − 1 data sample that contains 772 × 10 6 B B ¯ events. The data were collected at the ϒ ( 4 S ) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e + e − collider. We find no evidence for signal and set upper limits on branching fractions at the 90% confidence level in the range ( 3.8 – 47 ) × 10 − 8 depending on the decay channel. The obtained limits are the world’s best results. This is the first search for the channels B + , 0 → ( ω , ρ + , 0 ) e + e − and B + , 0 → ( ω , ρ + ) μ + μ − . Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Physics↗
Modeling the Solvation and Acidity of Carboxylic Acids Using an Ab Initio Deep Neural Network Potential
Formic and acetic acid constitute the simplest of carboxylic acids, yet they exhibit fascinating chemistry in the condensed phase such as proton transfer and dimerization. The go-to method of choice for modeling these rare events have been accurate but expensive ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations. Here, we present a deep neural network potential trained using accurate ab-initio data that can be used in tandem with enhanced-sampling methods to perform an efficient exploration of the free-energy surface of aqueous solutions of weak carboxylic acids. In particular, we show that our model captures proton dissociation and provides a good estimate of the pK a , as well as the dimerization of formic and acetic acid. This provides a suitable starting point for applications in different research areas where computational efficiency coupled with the accuracy of ab-initio methods is required.
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
Risk Ratio and Risk Difference Estimation in Case-cohort Studies
Background: In case-cohort studies with binary outcomes, ordinary logistic regression analyses have been widely used because of their computational simplicity. However, the resultant odds ratio estimates cannot be interpreted as relative risk measures unless the event rate is low. The risk ratio and risk difference are more favorable outcome measures that are directly interpreted as effect measures without the rare disease assumption. Methods: We provide pseudo-Poisson and pseudo-normal linear regression methods for estimating risk ratios and risk differences in analyses of case-cohort studies. These multivariate regression models are fitted by weighting the inverses of sampling probabilities. Also, the precisions of the risk ratio and risk difference estimators can be improved using auxiliary variable information, specifically by adapting the calibrated or estimated weights, which are readily measured on all samples from the whole cohort. Finally, we provide computational code in R (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria) that can easily perform these methods. Results: Through numerical analyses of artificially simulated data and the National Wilms Tumor Study data, accurate risk ratio and risk difference estimates were obtained using the pseudo-Poisson and pseudo-normal linear regression methods. Also, using the auxiliary variable information from the whole cohort, precisions of these estimators were markedly improved. Conclusion: The ordinary logistic regression analyses may provide uninterpretable effect measure estimates, and the risk ratio and risk difference estimation methods are effective alternative approaches for case-cohort studies. These methods are especially recommended under situations in which the event rate is not low.
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
Hanford Tank Vapors in Worker Breathing Zones - Source, Dispersion, and Receptor Data - 20373
A wide range of organic and inorganic chemicals from historical Hanford Site processes are now stored in 177 underground storage tanks at the Hanford tank farms. Workers at the Hanford tank farms have expressed concerns about chemical vapor exposures for many years. During the spring of 2014, worker reports of chemical odors and/or symptoms prompted the development of the Savannah River National Laboratory Hanford Tank Vapor Assessment Team (TVAT) and their resulting independent assessment and recommendations concerning tank farm worker reports of vapors. The Tank Vapor Assessment report included a hypothesis that 'vapors coming out of tanks in high concentration (bolus) plumes sporadically intersected with the breathing zones of workers, resulting in brief but intense exposures to some workers.' The focus of this effort is to present current knowledge to describe the mechanisms by which workers may experience short duration vapor concentrations above background in the tank farms environment. The TVAT hypothesis that workers have experienced concentrations approaching 80% of the tank headspace up to 3 meters (10 feet) from tank sources is not supported by sampling data or modeling results. Modeling indicates that concentrations are quickly reduced from the source, and that the upper end of predicted concentrations at worker breathing zones are a factor of 10 or more lower than source concentrations. Area measurements corroborate the fact that worker breathing zone concentrations are 10 to 100 times lower than source concentrations, and events with elevated concentrations are rare. These reduced vapor concentration levels may result in detectable odors or irritation, depending on a worker's specific odor threshold and sensitivity to the chemical species. Short-duration vapor events may be mitigated by evaluating daily atmospheric conditions in conjunction with planned tank farm activities. Monitoring changing conditions related to tank vapors concentrations at the source and within worker breathing zone is also an important step to protect workers from short duration elevated concentration events. (authors)
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
Search for $D^{*}(2007)^{0} \rightarrow \mu ^{+} \mu ^{-}$ in $B^{-}\rightarrow \pi ^{-} \mu ^{+} \mu ^{-}$ decays
The very rare D* (2007) 0 → μ + μ – decay is searched for by analysing B – → μ + μ – decays. The analysis uses a sample of beauty mesons produced in proton–proton collisions collected with the LHCb detector between 2011 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb –1 . The signal signature corresponds to simultaneous peaks in the μ + μ – and π – μ + μ – invariant masses. No evidence for an excess of events over background is observed and an upper limit is set on the branching fraction of the decay at B (D* (2007) 0 → μ + μ – ) < 2.6 x 10 –8 at 90% confidence level. This is the first limit on the branching fraction of D* (2007) 0 → μ + μ – decays and the most stringent limit on D* (2007) 0 decays to leptonic final states. The analysis is the first search for a rare charm-meson decay exploiting production via beauty decays.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗