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At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Global fit of electron and neutrino elastic scattering data to determine the strange quark contribution to the vector and axial form factors of the nucleon

We present a global fit of neutral-current elastic (NCE) neutrino-scattering data and parity-violating electron-scattering (PVES) data with the goal of determining the strange quark contribution to the vector and axial form factors of the proton. Previous fits of this form included data from a variety of PVES experiments (PVA4, HAPPEx, G0, SAMPLE) and the NCE neutrino and anti-neutrino data from BNL E734. These fits did not constrain the strangeness contribution to the axial form factor G A s ( Q 2 ) at low Q 2 very well because there was no NCE data for Q 2 < 0.45 GeV 2 . Our new fit includes for the first time MiniBooNE NCE data from both neutrino and antineutrino scattering; this experiment used a hydrocarbon target and so a model of the neutrino interaction with the carbon nucleus was required. Three different nuclear models have been employed: a relativistic Fermi gas model, the superscaling approximation model, and a spectral function model. We find a tremendous improvement in the constraint of G A s ( Q 2 ) at low Q 2 compared to previous work, although more data is needed from NCE measurements that focus on exclusive single-proton final states, for example from MicroBooNE. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Measurement of the neutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielastic cross section using atmospheric neutrinos in the SK-Gd experiment

We report the first measurement of the atmospheric neutrino-oxygen neutral-current quasielastic (NCQE) cross section in the gadolinium-loaded Super-Kamiokande (SK) water Cherenkov detector. In June 2020, SK began a new experimental phase, named SK-Gd, by loading 0.011% by mass of gadolinium into the ultrapure water of the SK detector. The introduction of gadolinium to ultrapure water has the effect of improving the neutron-tagging efficiency. Using a 552.2 day dataset from August 2020 to June 2022, we measure the NCQE cross section to be 0.74 ± 0.22 ( stat ) − 0.15 + 0.85 ( syst ) × 10 − 38 cm 2 / oxygen in the energy range from 160 MeV to 10 GeV, which is consistent with the atmospheric neutrino-flux-averaged theoretical NCQE cross section and the measurement in the SK pure-water phase within the uncertainties. Furthermore, we compare the models of the nucleon-nucleus interactions in water and find that the binary cascade model and the Liège intranuclear cascade model provide a somewhat better fit to the observed data than the Bertini cascade model. Since the atmospheric neutrino-oxygen NCQE reactions are one of the main backgrounds in the search for diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB), these new results will contribute to future studies—and the potential discovery—of the DSNB in SK. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Sakai, S. (ORCID:0000000221900062)↗
DOE OSTI2020

Long-baseline Sterile Neutrino Searches in the NOvA Experiment

Experimental high energy physics constitutes the experimental investigation of the fundamental building blocks of matter and radiation and their interactions. These fundamental building blocks are classified as bosons and fermions. Neutrinos are fermions that come under the lepton category. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, they are massless, neutral particles that interacts with matter only through weak force and comes in three different flavors. Neutrinos exhibit a characteristic property, known as the neutrino oscillation. Neutrino oscillation is the the change of neutrino from one flavor to another flavor as they propagates in space. This phenomenon is only possible if the neutrinos are massive. The reported anomalous result from LSND and MiniBooNE experiments demanded the existence of a fourth kind of neutrino, at the same time, LEP experimental result confirms that only three active neutrino can exist. So if they exists, this fourth kind of neutrino can’t interact through weak force or they can be called as sterile neutrino. Some of the experiments favored the existence of sterile neutrinos, at the same time, there are some other experiments that disfavors their existence. So the search for the sterile neutrinos is very active in the field of experimental neutrino physics. NOvA is a long-baseline experiment with two functionally identical detectors, a Near Detector (ND) at Fermilab and a Far Detector at Ash River, Minnesota which is 810 km far away from the ND. They are offaxis detectors that lie 14.6 mrad off from the beam axis. This enables the detector to receive a neutrino beam with energy peak at 2 GeV. The NOvA experiment is designed to run with both the neutrino beam and antineutrino beam and NOvA has the potential to search for the existence of sterile neutrinos. This thesis is based on the sterile neutrino search by looking at the depletion of the neutral-current (NC) energy spectrum of neutrinos at the FD. Since NC events are not sensitive to three flavor oscillation, any depletion of NC events at the FD indicates the existence of sterile neutrinos.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Search for Sterile Neutrinos with MINOS and MINOS+

MINOS+, a three year extension of the successful MINOS experiment, is a long-baseline neutrino experiment consisting of a beam originating at the NuMI beam facility, which is sampled 1 km downstream from in the 1 kt Near Detector at Fermilab, and again at 735 km downstream in the 5.4 kt Far Detector in the Soudan Underground Laboratory. Comparison of measurements taken at the Near and Far Detectors allows MINOS+ to probe with great precision the atmospheric domain of neutrino oscillations. Through observation of both neutral-current and charged-current weak interactions, MINOS+ is sensitive to both the muon neutrino survival and muon neutrino disappearance along its long baseline, which not only permits the high-precision measurement of m2 32 and 23 in the standard three- avor neutrino oscillations model but also allows for searches for anomalous oscillation behaviors. Here we show that observation of the anomalous disappearance of muon neutrinos can be interpreted in the context of oscillations in a phenomenological model containing three active neutrino avor eigenstates and one sterile neutrino eigenstate. MINOS+, a three year extension of the successful MINOS experiment, is a long-baseline neutrino experiment consisting of a beam originating at the NuMI beam facility, which is sampled 1 km downstream from in the 1 kt Near Detector at Fermilab, and again at 735 km downstream in the 5.4 kt Far Detector in the Soudan Underground Laboratory. Comparison of measurements taken at the Near and Far Detectors allows MINOS+ to probe with great precision the atmospheric domain of neutrino oscillations. Through observation of both neutral-current and charged-current weak interactions, MINOS+ is sensitive to both the muon neutrino survival and muon neutrino disappearance along its long baseline, which not only permits the high-precision measurement of m2 32 and 23 in the standard three- avor neutrino oscillations model but also allows for searches for anomalous oscillation behaviors. Here we show that observation of the anomalous disappearance of muon neutrinos can be interpreted in the context of oscillations in a phenomenological model containing three active neutrino avor eigenstates and one sterile neutrino eigenstate.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Neutrino-nucleon scattering in supernova matter from the virial expansion

Here we extend our virial approach to study the neutral-current neutrino response of nuclear matter at low densities. In the long-wavelength limit, the virial expansion makes model-independent predictions for neutrino-nucleon scattering rates and the density S V and spin S A responses. We find that S A is significantly reduced from one even at low densities. We provide a simple fit $S^f_A$(n,T,Y p ) of the axial response as a function of density n, temperature T, and proton fraction Y p , which can be incorporated into supernova simulations in a straightforward manner. This fit reproduces our virial results at low densities and the Burrows and Sawyer random-phase approximation (RPA) model calculations at high densities. Preliminary one-dimensional supernova simulations suggest that the virial reduction in the axial response may enhance neutrino heating rates in the gain region during the accretion phase of a core-collapse supernovae.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Comparing event generator predictions and ab initio calculations of ν- 12 C neutral-current quasielastic scattering at 1 GeV

The measurement of neutrino oscillations and exotic physics searches are important parts of the physics program in the near future, with new state-of-the-art experiments planned within the next decade. Future and modern experiments in these fields will make use of nuclear targets. Event generators (EGs) are software used in the analysis of neutrino oscillation experiments. EGs are used to predict kinematic observables for a range of neutrino energies. These simulations make use of simple models of nucleon dynamics. As such, they may fail to capture features of more rigorous theoretical calculations. This work compares EG performance to nuclear theory calculations by comparing observables generated in the two frameworks. We provide a common set of definitions between theory and experiment and assess the adequacy of the implementation of two nuclear physics models in EG simulations. Neutral-current quasielastic (NCQE) scattering events for neutrinos and antineutrinos on a 12 C target are simulated with a specific EG, NEUT, used by the T2K experiment for its analysis. The simulated cross sections are compared to analytic calculations from nuclear theory within the factorization scheme. We compare the NEUT implementation of two different models on nuclear spectral functions: the relativistic Fermi gas (RFG) and the correlated basis spectral function (CBF) to analytic calculations of the same models in the factorization scheme. For both nuclear physics models, we compare the appearance of features in the distributions relevant to experimental analyses. The peak of the cross section dσ/(dΩ dω) is consistent in energy transfer, ω, for RFG and CBF simulations. Qualitatively, the shape of the simulated distribution is similar to the one obtained through theory calculations; however, there are some discrepancies between the theory calculations and the NEUT simulation. While the EG simulations and analytic calculations with the same model of nuclear dynamics show similar overall features, there are still differences between the two. These results demonstrate the importance of benchmarking EGs so their nuclear physics implementations can be improved for the analysis of future experiments.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Single neutral pion production by charged-current ν ¯ μ interactions on hydrocarbon at 〈 E ν 〉 = 3.6 GeV

We studied single neutral pion production via muon antineutrino charged-current interactions in plastic scintillator (CH) using the MINERvA detector exposed to the NuMI low-energy, wideband antineutrino beam at Fermilab. Measurement of this process constrains models of neutral pion production in nuclei, which is important because the neutral-current analog is a background for appearance oscillation experiments. Furthermore, the differential cross sections for π 0 momentum and production angle, for events with a single observed π 0 and no charged pions, are presented and compared to model predictions. These results comprise the first measurement of the π 0 kinematics for this process.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Experimental M 1 response of 40 Ar as a benchmark for neutrino-nucleus scattering calculations

The excitation of atomic nuclei via magnetic dipole transitions is closely related to the inelastic neutral-current neutrino-nucleus (NC-νA) scattering process due to the similarity of the transition operators. NC-νA-scattering serves for the detection of supernova neutrinos and poses a significant source of background in modern liquid-argon based high-energy neutrino detection experiments. To enable tests of the reliability of predictions for neutrino-nucleus scattering, the magnetic dipole response of 40 Ar below 7.7 MeV was characterized in a nuclear resonance fluorescence experiment using quasimonoenergetic γ-ray beams. The linear polarization of the beams allowed for assignments of electric or magnetic character to previously known dipole excitations. A total magnetic dipole strength of $0.36$ $^{+0.04}_{–0.05}$ $μ$ $^{2}_{N}$ was identified in the energy range of the present experiment. Combined with data from previous measurements, the full magnetic dipole strength of 40 Ar below the neutron separation threshold was investigated. Due to the low background in the energy range within the bandwidth of the γ-ray beams, the previous sensitivity limit was improved. Furthermore, a large-scale nuclear shell model calculation in the sd–fp space satisfactorily agrees with the data in terms of excitation energies and strengths of the observed 1 + states.

39 ≤ A ≤ 58↗
DOE OSTI2025

Constraining non-standard neutrino interactions with neutral current events at long-baseline oscillation experiments

We explore, for the first time, neutral-curren t events at long-baseline experiments to constrain vector and axial-vector neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI) with quarks. We leverage the flavor dependence of NSIs to perform an oscillation analysis in the neutral- current channel. We first introduce a framework to parametrize the effect of NSI on the cross section. Then, as an example, we analyze NOvA neutral-current data which provides significantly improved constraints on the axial-vector NSI parameters ${\varepsilon}_{\mu \mu}^A$, ${\varepsilon}_{\tau \tau}^A$ and ${\varepsilon}_{e\mu}^A$. This is highly complementary to constraints from SNO data, which, differently from long-baseline neutral current data, is not sensitive to isospin conserving NSIs ${\varepsilon}_u^A$ = ${\varepsilon}_d^A$. Additionally, we disfavor large values of the diagonal vectorial NSI ${\varepsilon}_{\mu \mu}^{VV}$ and ${\varepsilon}_{\tau \tau}^V$ which originate from the LMA-Dark solution. We also highlight the complementarity between NSI searches at oscillation experiments using charged current and neutral current channels.

neutrino interactions↗
DOE OSTI2015

New vector-like fermions and flavor physics

We study renormalizable extensions of the standard model that contain vector-like fermions in a (single) complex representation of the standard model gauge group. There are 11 models where the vector-like fermions Yukawa couple to the standard model fermions via the Higgs field. These models do not introduce additional fine-tunings. They can lead to, and are constrained by, a number of different flavor-changing processes involving leptons and quarks, as well as direct searches. An interesting feature of the models with strongly interacting vector-like fermions is that constraints from neutral meson mixings (apart from CP violation in $ {K}^0-{\overline{K}}^0 $ mixing) are not sensitive to higher scales than other flavor-changing neutral-current processes. We identify order 1/(4πM) 2 (where M is the vector-like fermion mass) one-loop contributions to the coefficients of the four-quark operators for meson mixing, that are not suppressed by standard model quark masses and/or mixing angles.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Search for flavour-changing neutral-current couplings between the top quark and the photon with the ATLAS detector at s = 13 TeV

This letter documents a search for flavour-changing neutral currents (FCNCs), which are strongly suppressed in the Standard Model, in events with a photon and a top quark with the ATLAS detector. The analysis uses data collected in pp collisions at TeV during Run 2 of the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb –1 . Both FCNC top-quark production and decay are considered. The final state consists of a charged lepton, missing transverse momentum, a b-tagged jet, one high-momentum photon and possibly additional jets. A multiclass deep neural network is used to classify events either as signal in one of the two categories, FCNC production or decay, or as background. No significant excess of events over the background prediction is observed and 95% CL upper limits are placed on the strength of left- and right-handed FCNC interactions. The 95% CL bounds on the branching fractions for the FCNC top-quark decays, estimated (expected) from both top-quark production and decay, are B(t → uγ) < 0.85 (0.88$^{+0.37}_{-0.25}$) × 10 –5 and B(t → cγ) < 4.2 (3.40$^{+1.35}_{-0.95}$) × 10 –5 for a left-handed tqγ coupling, and B(t → uγ) < 1.2 (1.20$^{+0.50}_{-1.33}$) ×10 –5 and B(t → cγ) < 4.5 (3.70$^{+1.47}_{-1.03}$) × 10 –5 for a right-handed coupling.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Search for neutral-current induced single photon production at the ND280 near detector in T2K

Neutrino neutral-current (NC) induced single photon production is a sub-leading order process for accelerator-based neutrino beam experiments including T2K. It is, however, an important process to understand because it is a background for electron (anti)neutrino appearance oscillation experiments. Here, we performed the first search of this process below 1 GeV using the fine-grained detector at the T2K ND280 off-axis near detector. By reconstructing single photon kinematics from electron–positron pairs, we achieved 95% pure gamma ray sample from protons-on-targets neutrino mode data. We do not find positive evidence of NC induced single photon production in this sample. We set the model-dependent upper limit on the cross-section for this process, at 0.114 x 10 –38 cm 2 (90% C.L.) per nucleon, using the J-PARC off-axis neutrino beam with an average energy of E v ~ 0.6 GeV. This is the first limit on this process below 1 GeV which is important for current and future oscillation experiments looking for electron neutrino appearance oscillation signals.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Unfolding neutron spectrum with Markov Chain Monte Carlo at MIT research Reactor with He-3 Neutral Current Detectors [Measuring neutron spectrum at MIT research reactor utilizing He-3 Bonner Cylinder Approach with an unfolding analysis]

Here, the Ricochet experiment seeks to measure Coherent (neutral-current) Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEνNS) using dark-matter-style detectors with sub-keV thresholds placed near a neutrino source, such as the MIT (research) Reactor (MITR), which operates at 5.5 MW generating approximately 2.2 × 10 18 ν/second in its core. Currently, Ricochet is characterizing the backgrounds at MITR, the main component of which comes in the form of neutrons emitted from the core simultaneous with the neutrino signal. To characterize this background, we wrapped Bonner cylinders around a 3 2 He thermal neutron detector, whose data was then unfolded via a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to produce a neutron energy spectrum across several orders of magnitude. We discuss the resulting spectrum and its implications for deploying Ricochet at the MITR site as well as the feasibility of reducing this background level via the addition of polyethylene shielding around the detector setup.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Deployment of Water-based Liquid Scintillator in the Accelerator Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment

The Accelerator Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment (ANNIE) is a 26-ton water Cherenkov neutrino detector installed on the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) 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 paper presents the deployment of a 366 L WbLS vessel in ANNIE in March 2023 and the subsequent detection of both Cherenkov light and scintillation from the WbLS. Finally, this proof-of-concept allows for the future development of reconstruction and particle identification algorithms in ANNIE, as well as dedicated analyses within the WbLS volume, such as the search for neutral-current events and the hadronic scintillation component.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Observation and differential cross section measurement of neutral current DIS events with an empty hemisphere in the Breit frame

The Breit frame provides a natural frame to analyze lepton–proton scattering events. In this reference frame, the parton model hard interactions between a quark and an exchanged boson defines the coordinate system such that the struck quark is back-scattered along the virtual photon momentum direction. In Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), higher order perturbative or non-perturbative effects can change this picture drastically. As Bjorken-x decreases below one half, a rather peculiar event signature is predicted with increasing probability, where no radiation is present in one of the two Breit-frame hemispheres and all emissions are to be found in the other hemisphere. At higher orders in $\alpha$ s or in the presence of soft QCD effects, predictions of the rate of these events are far from trivial, and that motivates measurements with real data. We report on the first observation of the empty current hemisphere events in electron–proton collisions at the HERA collider using data recorded with the H1 detector at a center-of-mass energy of 319 GeV. The fraction of inclusive neutral-current DIS events with an empty hemisphere is found to be 0.0112 ± 3.9% stat ± 4.5% syst ± 1.6% mod in the selected kinematic region of 150 < Q 2 < 1500 GeV 2 and inelasticity 0.14 < y < 0.7. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 351.1 pb -1 , sufficient to enable differential cross section measurements of these events. The results show an enhanced discriminating power at lower Bjorken-x among different Monte Carlo event generator predictions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Shower Reconstruction for Cross-Section Measurements with Photon(s) in the Final State at SBND

The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is a 112-ton liquid argon time projection chamber operating in the Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermilab as part of the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program. Precise reconstruction of electromagnetic showers from photons and electrons is essential for searches for neutrino oscillations, cross-section measurements, and rare-process studies in liquid argon. In this poster, we present a unified set of SBND analyses enabled by the SPINE (Scalable Particle Imaging with Neural Embeddings) end-to-end machine-learning–based reconstruction framework, highlighting charged-current neutral pion (CC π⁰) production and neutral-current (NC) Δ radiative decay as complementary physics cases. Charged-current π⁰ interactions provide a high-statistics benchmark for validating photon reconstruction, constraining the electromagnetic energy scale, and modeling backgrounds to other cross-section measurements and BSM searches with one or more photons in the final state. We summarize progress toward the ongoing development of a CC π⁰ selection in SBND and, report on the current status of a search for NC resonant Δ production followed by radiative decay (Δ→Nγ) in SBND. This rare process, previously investigated in MicroBooNE, provides a stringent test of photon-only final-state reconstruction and is of interest in the context of the MiniBooNE low-energy excess. Together, these analyses demonstrate how modern machine-learning–based shower reconstruction enables a diverse and scalable physics program at SBND.

Chung, Seokju [Nevis Labs, Columbia U.]↗
DOE OSTI2016

Automated Reconstruction, Signal Processing and Particle Identification in DUNE

Liquid Argon TPC (LArTPC) technology is increasingly prevalent in large-scale detectors de- signed to observe neutrino scattering events induced by accelerators or by natural sources. LArTPCs consist of a very high fraction of active detector material with spatial resolutions on the order of a few millimeters. Three-dimensional interactions are imaged in multiple two- dimensional views by the process of projection onto planes of wires. The goal of automated reconstruction is to correctly classify each neutrino scattering event by the flavor of the incoming neutrino, to separate charged-current events from neutral-current and other backgrounds, and to measure the energies of the incoming neutrinos. Detection of neutrinos from supernova bursts and also searching for nucleon decay are important uses of automated reconstruction algorithms. Be- cause the amount of spatial detail is high and the amount of scattering is high, this reconstruction presents many challenges that are now being investigated with sophisticated techniques. Signal processing, track and shower identification, particle identification, and event classification by a variety of innovative algorithms are reviewed

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗