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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Deployment and performance of a Low-Energy-Threshold Skipper-CCD inside a nuclear reactor

Charge Coupled Devices (CCD) are being used for reactor neutrino experiments and have already demonstrated their potential in constraining new physics models. The prospect of a Skipper-CCD experiment looking for standard and beyond standard model (BSM) physics in a nuclear reactor has been evaluated for different benchmark scenarios. Here, we report the first installation of a 2-g Skipper-CCD inside the containment building of a 2 GW th nuclear power plant and analyze its performance throughout its first 18 months of operation. The sensor was successfully deployed at Atucha II, in Argentina, 12 meters away from the center of the reactor core. We discuss the challenges involved in the commissioning of the detector and present data acquired during reactor ON and reactor OFF periods, with the sensor functioning with a sub-electron readout noise of 0.17 e - . Based on an exposure of 56.8 g day reactor ON and two reactor OFF data sets with a total exposure of 118.1 g day we characterize the system and evaluate the sensitivity to CEvNS. We achieved a background rate of 33 kdru and a low threshold of 45 eV ee . The ongoing efforts to improve sensitivities to CEvNS and BSM interaction are also discussed.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Search for top squarks in final states with many light-flavor jets and 0, 1, or 2 charged leptons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV

Several new physics models including versions of supersymmetry (SUSY) characterized by R-parity violation (RPV) or with additional hidden sectors predict the production of events with top quarks, low missing transverse momentum, and many additional quarks or gluons. The results of a search for top squarks decaying to two top quarks and six additional light-flavor quarks or gluons are reported. The search employs a novel machine learning method for background estimation from control samples in data using decorrelated discriminators. The search is performed using events with 0, 1, or 2 electrons or muons in conjunction with at least six jets. No requirement is placed on the magnitude of the missing transverse momentum. The result is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV corresponding to 138 fb −1 of integrated luminosity collected with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2016–2018. With no statistically significant excess of events observed beyond the expected contributions from the standard model, the data are used to determine upper limits on the top squark pair production cross section in the frameworks of RPV and stealth SUSY. Models with top squark masses less than 700 (930) GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level for RPV (stealth) SUSY scenarios.

Hadron-Hadron Scattering↗
DOE OSTI2020

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↗
DOE OSTI2021

Muon g -2 from millicharged hidden confining sector

We provide a novel explanation to the muon g - 2 excess with new physics contributions at the two-loop level. In this scenario, light millicharged particles are introduced to modify the photon vacuum polarization that contributes to muon g - 2 at one additional loop. The muon g - 2 excess can be explained with the millicharged particle mass m χ around 10 MeV and the product of the multiplicity factor and millicharge squared of N χ ε 2 ~ 10 -3 . The minimal model faces severe constraints from direct searches at fixed-target experiments and astrophysical observables. However, if the millicharged particles are also charged under a hidden confining gauge group SU(N χ ) with a confinement scale of MeV, hidden-sector hadrons are unstable and can decay into neutrinos, which makes this scenario consistent with existing constraints. This explanation can be well tested at low-energy lepton colliders such as BESIII and Belle II as well as other proposed fixed-target experiments.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

The bottom-up EFT: complete UV resonances of the SMEFT operators

The standard model effective field theory (SMEFT) provides systematic parameterization of all possible new physics above the electroweak scale. According to the amplitude-operator correspondence, an effective operator can be decomposed into a linear combination of several j-basis operators, which correspond to local amplitudes carrying certain spin and gauge quantum numbers in a particular scattering channel. Based on the Poincare and gauge symmetries of scattering amplitude, we construct the j-basis using the Casimir method for both the Lorentz and gauge sectors. The quantum numbers of the j-basis operators fix the quantum numbers of any intermediate state in the corresponding amplitudes, such as a UV resonance. This can be re-interpreted as the j-basis/UV correspondence, thus obtaining the j-bases in all partitions of fields for an operator amounts to finding all of its UV origins at tree level, constituting the central part of the bottom-up EFT framework. Applying the j-basis analysis to SMEFT, we obtain a complete list of possible tree-level UV origins of the effective operators at the dimension 5, 6, 7, and all the bosonic operators at dimension 8.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

EFT approach to the endpoint of muon decay-in-orbit

As upcoming experiments aim to probe muon conversion with unprecedented precision, equally precise theoretical predictions are crucial to maximize discovery potential. This applies not only to the new physics signal, muon-electron conversion, but also to its only irreducible background, muon decay-in-orbit (DIO) near the endpoint. Accurate computation of higher-order corrections in bound states is a long-standing challenge due to the difficulty of systematically organizing contributions. In previous work, we developed an Effective Field Theory framework to address this issue and applied it to muon conversion. Here, we extend this approach to the DIO endpoint, a more complex problem due to the presence of a neutrino-antineutrino pair in the final state. We present the most precise prediction to date of the background spectrum relevant for future muon conversion searches, achieving next-to-leading logarithmic prime accuracy for QED corrections.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Finding wombling boundaries in LHC data with Voronoi and Delaunay tessellations

We address the problem of finding a wombling boundary in point data generated by a general Poisson point process, a specific example of which is an LHC event sample distributed in the phase space of a final state signature, with the wombling boundary created by some new physics. We discuss the use of Voronoi and Delaunay tessellations of the point data for estimating the local gradients and investigate methods for sharpening the boundaries by reducing the statistical noise. The outcome from traditional wombling algorithms is a set of boundary cell candidates with relatively large gradients, whose spatial properties must then be scrutinized in order to construct the boundary and evaluate its significance. Here we propose an alternative approach where we simultaneously form and evaluate the significance of all possible boundaries in terms of the total gradient flux. We illustrate our method with several toy examples of both straight and curved boundaries with varying amounts of signal present in the data.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Two-loop electroweak corrections to the Top-Quark Contribution to ϵ K

The parameter ϵ K measures CP violation in the neutral kaon system. It is a sensitive probe of new physics and plays a prominent role in the global fit of the Cabibbo-Kobabyashi-Maskawa matrix. The perturbative theory uncertainty is currently dominated by the top-quark contribution. Here, we present the calculation of the full two-loop electroweak corrections to the top-quark contribution to ϵ K , including the resummation of QED-QCD logarithms. We discuss different renormalization prescriptions for the electroweak input parameters. In the traditional normalization of the weak Hamiltonian with two powers of the Fermi constant G F , the top-quark contribution is shifted by –1%.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Unveiling the Universe with emerging cosmological probes

The detection of the accelerated expansion of the Universe has been one of the major breakthroughs in modern cosmology. Several cosmological probes (Cosmic Microwave Background, Supernovae Type Ia, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations) have been studied in depth to better understand the nature of the mechanism driving this acceleration, and they are being currently pushed to their limits, obtaining remarkable constraints that allowed us to shape the standard cosmological model. In parallel to that, however, the percent precision achieved has recently revealed apparent tensions between measurements obtained from different methods. These are either indicating some unaccounted systematic effects, or are pointing toward new physics. Following the development of CMB, SNe, and BAO cosmology, it is critical to extend our selection of cosmological probes. Novel probes can be exploited to validate results, control or mitigate systematic effects, and, most importantly, to increase the accuracy and robustness of our results. This review is meant to provide a state-of-art benchmark of the latest advances in emerging “beyond-standard” cosmological probes. We present how several different methods can become a key resource for observational cosmology. In particular, we review cosmic chronometers, quasars, gamma-ray bursts, standard sirens, lensing time-delay with galaxies and clusters, cosmic voids, neutral hydrogen intensity mapping, surface brightness fluctuations, stellar ages of the oldest objects, secular redshift drift, and clustering of standard candles. The review describes the method, systematics, and results of each probe in a homogeneous way, giving the reader a clear picture of the available innovative methods that have been introduced in recent years and how to apply them. The review also discusses the potential synergies and complementarities between the various probes, exploring how they will contribute to the future of modern cosmology.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Parametrizations of the spin density matrix

Highlights: • Proposed two methods for parametrizing the SDM of spinning, unstable particles. • All non-negativity conditions fulfilled; adaptability to various constraints. • First method: based on a theorem; applicable in a simple and flexible way. • Second method: particularly suitable for especial conditions. • Applications: two of them interesting in the search for new physics. We propose for the spin density matrix two parametrizations which automatically fulfill the non-negativity conditions, without setting any bound on the parameters. The first one relies on a theorem, that we prove, and it is rather simple and easily adaptable to some specific reactions, where, for example, parity is conserved or angular momentum conservation entails selection rules. Moreover, in the case when the rank is less than the order of the density matrix, we show how to improve the fits to the data, either by implementing previous suggestions, or by elaborating an alternative method, for which we prove a second theorem. Our second parametrization is a variant of previous treatments, it appears suitable for some particular processes. Moreover, we discuss about the possibility of inferring the elements of the density matrix from the differential decay width. Last, we illustrate various examples of current interest, both in strong and weak decays; some of them may be helpful in the investigation of physics beyond the standard model.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Cosmology Intertwined III: $f \sigma_8$ and $S_8$

The standard $\Lambda$ Cold Dark Matter cosmological model provides a wonderful fit to current cosmological data, but a few tensions and anomalies became statistically significant with the latest data analyses. While these anomalies could be due to the presence of systematic errors in the experiments, they could also indicate the need for new physics beyond the standard model. In this Letter of Interest we focus on the tension of the Planck data with weak lensing measurements and redshift surveys, about the value of the matter energy density $\Omega_m$, and the amplitude or rate of the growth of structure ($\sigma_8,f\sigma_8$). We list a few interesting models for solving this tension, and we discuss the importance of trying to fit with a single model a full array of data and not just one parameter at a time.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Snowmass2021 - Letter of interest cosmology intertwined IV: The age of the universe and its curvature

A precise measurement of the curvature of the Universe is of prime importance for cosmology since it could not only confirm the paradigm of primordial inflation but also help in discriminating between different early-Universe scenarios. Recent observations, while broadly consistent with a spatially flat standard Λ Cold Dark Matter ( Λ CDM) model, show tensions that still allow (and, in some cases, even suggest) a few percent deviations from a flat universe. In particular, the Planck Cosmic Microwave Background power spectra, assuming the nominal likelihood, prefer a closed universe at more than 99% confidence level. While new physics could be at play, this anomaly may be the result of an unresolved systematic error or just a statistical fluctuation. However, since positive curvature allows a larger age of the Universe, an accurate determination of the age of the oldest objects provides a smoking gun in confirming or falsifying the current flat Λ CDM model.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

A non-cooperative meta-modeling game for automated third-party calibrating, validating and falsifying constitutive laws with parallelized adversarial attacks

The evaluation of constitutive models, especially for high-risk and high-regret engineering applications, requires efficient and rigorous third-party calibration, validation and falsification. While there are numerous efforts to develop paradigms and standard procedures to validate models, difficulties may arise due to the sequential, manual, and often biased nature of the commonly adopted calibration and validation processes, thus slowing down data collections, hampering the progress towards discovering new physics, increasing expenses and possibly leading to misinterpretations of the credibility and application ranges of proposed models. This work attempts to introduce concepts from game theory and machine learning techniques to overcome many of these existing difficulties. Here, we introduce an automated meta-modeling game where two competing AI agents systematically generate experimental data to calibrate a given constitutive model and to explore its weakness such that the experiment design and model robustness can be improved through competitions. The two agents automatically search for the Nash equilibrium of the meta-modeling game in an adversarial reinforcement learning framework without human intervention. In particular, a protagonist agent seeks to find the more effective ways to generate data for model calibrations, while an adversary agent tries to find the most devastating test scenarios that expose the weaknesses of the constitutive model calibrated by the protagonist. By capturing all possible design options of the laboratory experiments into a single decision tree, we recast the design of experiments as a game of combinatorial moves that can be resolved through deep reinforcement learning by the two competing players. Our adversarial framework emulates idealized scientific collaborations and competitions among researchers to achieve a better understanding of the application range of the learned material laws and prevent misinterpretations caused by conventional AI-based third-party validation. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the wide applicability of the proposed meta-modeling game with adversarial attacks on both human-crafted constitutive models and machine learning models.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Automated identification and calculation of prompt effects in kinetic mechanisms using statistical models

The kinetics of prompt dissociation involves rovibrationally excited species (generally formed by exothermic reactions) which may dissociate or isomerize prior to thermalization via collisions with the bath gas. Treating such rovibrationally excited species (so-called "hot" species) with standard kinetic phenomenology may result in incorrect macroscopic representation of their reactivity. Here this work presents the first fully automated methodology for the calculation of prompt effects of a chosen species in a kinetic mechanism, including (i) reaction selection; (ii) theoretical calculation of rate constants and prompt branching fractions; and (iii) final rate constant fitting. The energy partition between hot fragments is estimated using a variety of statistical models, including a new physically sound microcanonical statistical model based on the rovibrational density of states of the fragments. The methodology is validated against literature data for the prompt dissociations of HCO and C 3 H 7 radicals. The microcanonical statistical model is in better agreement with trajectory simulations for larger species and is thus applicable for practical systems that typically involve large molecules, for which direct dynamics calculations are impractical. The automated workflow is applied to the evaluation of the effects of prompt dissociation for two isomeric radicals C 4 H 7 1-3 (1-methylallyl) and C 4 H 7 1-4 (3-buten-1-yl). Twelve H-atom abstraction reactions are selected and the corresponding rate constants are computed with first principles theory. The microcanonical statistical model predicts that prompt dissociations of C 4 H 7 1-3 and C 4 H 7 1-4 are already significant at 1000K, resulting in differences of up to an order of magnitude at 2000K with respect to the phenomenological thermal rate constants. To illustrate the effects of prompt dissociation on simulations of experimental data, the calculated prompt rate constants are implemented in both CRECK and C3MechV3.3 kinetic mechanisms. Simulations of experimental flame data illustrate the noticeable impact of prompt dissociation kinetics on the high-temperature combustion reactivity of C 4 H 8 -1 and C 4 H 8 -2.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

EvoEMD: Cosmic evolution with an early matter-dominated era

In this work, we present EvoEMD, a framework to calculate the evolution of cosmic relics in a Universe with an early matter-dominated (EMD) era. There are mainly two aspects to consider in this regard. First, an EMD era changes the Hubble expansion rate with respect to the standard radiation-dominated (RD) universe. Second, when the EMD era ends, the out-of-equilibrium decay of the dominant matter component may reheat the thermal bath and dilute cosmic relics. We briefly introduce the cosmology with an EMD era, and present how it is implemented in the EvoEMD framework. Users can study the coupled evolution of different interacting species in an EMD or RD universe. Two important cosmic relics are dark matter and a net lepton number. In order to show the capabilities of EvoEMD, we include simple examples of dark matter produced via freeze-out and freeze-in, and also of leptogenesis. Moreover, users can modify the model files in order to explore different new physics scenarios. EvoEMD is hosted on Github at https://github.com/ycwu1030/EvoEMD.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

CsI calorimeter for the J-PARC KOTO experiment

An electromagnetic calorimeter made of undoped CsI crystals is used in the J-PARC KOTO experiment to search for new physics beyond the standard model with the KL → π 0 νν¯ decay. The calorimeter is designed to operate in vacuum of 0.1 Pa and in a high-rate environment where the counting rate due to KL decays is O(100) kHz. A special method to calibrate the calorimeter during the data taking without using a tracking system for charged particles is reported. The energy, position, and timing resolutions of the calorimeter were evaluated in several beam tests, and the resolutions satisfy the required performance. Finally, the energy resolution with the total energy E is 0.66 ⊕ 1.81/ √ E[GeV]% in the inner region of the calorimeter.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Mu2e experiment — Searching for charged lepton flavor violation

The Mu2e experiment will search for a Standard Model violating rate of neutrinoless conversion of a muon into an electron in the presence of an aluminum nucleus. Observation of this charged lepton flavor violating process would be an unambiguous sign of new physics. Mu2e will improve upon previous searches for this process by four orders of magnitude. This requires the world’s highest-intensity muon beam, a detector system capable of efficiently reconstructing the 105 MeV/c conversion electron signal, and minimizing sensitivity to background events. A pulsed 8 GeV proton beam strikes a target, producing pions that decay into muons. Beam outside the pulse must be suppressed to < 1 0 – 10 to reduce beam-related backgrounds. The muon beam is guided from the production target along the transport system and onto the aluminum stopping target. Conversion electrons leave the stopping target and propagate inside a solenoidal magnetic field to the tracker and electromagnetic calorimeter. The tracker is a system of straw tube panels filled with Ar/CO 2 at 1 atm that tracks particles inside of a solenoidal B-field and measures their momenta with ~ 100 keV/c resolution to resolve signal events from decay-in-orbit backgrounds. The CsI calorimeter provides E / p and is used to seed the track reconstruction algorithm with σ E / E ~ 10 % and σ t < 500 ps . Additionally, a novel cosmic ray veto with greater than 99.99% efficiency brings the expected number of background events to fewer than one over three years of running. Finally, to normalize the experiment, the stopping target monitor measures the rate of capture photons from muons incident on the stopping target by using a system of high-purity germanium and lanthanum bromide scintillators.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Search for e → τ charged lepton flavor violation at the EIC with the ECCE detector

The recently approved Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will provide a unique new opportunity for searches of charged lepton flavor violation (CLFV) and other new physics scenarios. In contrast to the e ↔ μ CLFV transition for which very stringent limits exist, there is still a relatively large discovery space for the e → τ CLFV transition, potentially to be explored by the EIC. Here, with the latest detector design of ECCE (EIC Comprehensive Chromodynamics Experiment) and projected integral luminosity of the EIC, we find the τ-leptons created in the DIS process ep → τX are expected to be identified with high efficiency. A first ECCE simulation study, restricted to the 3-prong τ-decay mode and with limited statistics for the Standard Model backgrounds, estimates that the EIC will be able to improve the current exclusion limit on e → τ CLFV by an order of magnitude. As a result, the very high vertex resolution of the ECCE detector configuration plays a critical role in τ identification.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗