Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Hidetoshi Otono

Publications and source records attributed to Hidetoshi Otono.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2018

Fundamental physics activities with pulsed neutron at J-PARC(BL05)

"Neutron Optics and Physics (NOP/ BL05)" at MLF in J-PARC is a beamline for studies of fundamental physics. The beamline is divided into three branches so that different experiments can be performed in parallel. These beam branches are being used to develop a variety of new projects. We are developing an experimental project to measure the neutron lifetime with total uncertainty of 1 s (0.1%). The neutron lifetime is an important parameter in elementary particle and astrophysics. Thus far, the neutron lifetime has been measured by several groups; however, different values are obtained from different measurement methods. This experiment is using a method with different sources of systematic uncertainty than measurements conducted to date. We are also developing a source of pulsed ultra-cold neutrons (UCNs) produced from a Doppler shifter are available at the unpolarized beam branch. We are developing a time focusing device for UCNs, a so called "rebuncher", which can increase UCN density from a pulsed UCN source. At the low divergence beam branch, an experiment to search an unknown intermediate force with nanometer range is performed by measuring the angular dependence of neutron scattering by noble gases. Finally the beamline is also used for the research and development of optical elements and detectors. For example, a position sensitive neutron detector that uses emulsion to achieve sub-micrometer resolution is currently under development. We have succeeded in detecting cold and ultra-cold neutrons using the emulsion detector.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2018

Precise Neutron Lifetime Measurement with a Solenoidal Coil

The neutron lifetime, $τ$ = 880.2 $\pm$ 1.0 sec , is an important parameter for particle physics and cosmology. There is, however, an 8.4 sec (4.0$\,σ$) deviation between the measured value of the neutron lifetime using two methods : one method counts neutrons that survive after some time, while the other counts protons resulting from neutron beta decay. A new method is being implemented at J-PARC / MLF / BL05 using a pulsed cold neutron beam. A Time Projection Chamber (TPC) records both the electrons from neutron beta decay and protons from the neutron-$^3$He capture reactions in order to estimate the neutron flux. Electron background signals require the largest correction and are source of uncertainty for this experiment. A solenoidal magnetic field can greatly reduce this background. The TPC drift region must be divided into three region in this case. A prototype detector was developed to study the multi drift layer TPC. The status of a study using a prototype detector is reported in this paper.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2017

Higgsino Dark Matter or Not: Role of Disappearing Track Searches at the LHC and Future Colliders

Higgsino in supersymmetric standard models is known to be a promising candidate for dark matter in the Universe. Its phenomenological property is strongly affected by the gaugino fraction in the Higgsino-like state. If this is sizable, in other words, if gaugino masses are less than ${\cal O}(10)$ TeV, we may probe the Higgsino dark matter in future non-accelerator experiments such as dark matter direct searches and measurements of electric dipole moments. On the other hand, if gauginos are much heavier, then it is hard to search for Higgsino in these experiments. In this case, due to a lack of gaugino components, the mass difference between the neutral and charged Higgsinos is uniquely determined by electroweak interactions to be around $350$ MeV, which makes the heavier charged state rather long-lived, with a decay length of about $1$ cm. In this letter, we argue that a charged particle with a flight length of ${\cal O}(1)$ cm can be probed in disappearing-track searches if we require only two hits in the pixel detector. Even in this case, we can reduce background events with the help of the displaced-vertex reconstruction technique. We study the prospects of this search strategy at the LHC and future colliders for the Higgsino dark matter scenario. It is found that an almost pure Higgsino is indeed within the reach of the future $33$ TeV collider experiments. We then discuss that the interplay among collider and non-accelerator experiments plays a crucial role in testing the Higgsino dark matter scenarios. Our strategy for disappearing-track searches can also enlarge the discovery potential of pure wino dark matter as well as other electroweak-charged dark matter candidates.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2017

Extending the LHC Reach for New Physics with Sub-Millimeter Displaced Vertices

Particles with a sub-millimeter decay length appear in many models of physics beyond the Standard Model. However, their longevity has been often ignored in their LHC searches and they have been regarded as promptly-decaying particles. In this letter, we show that, by requiring displaced vertices on top of the event selection criteria used in the ordinary search strategies for promptly-decaying particles, we can considerably extend the LHC reach for particles with a decay length of $\gtrsim 100~μ{\rm m}$. We discuss a way of reconstructing sub-millimeter displaced vertices by exploiting the same technique used for the primary vertex reconstruction on the assumption that the metastable particles are always pair-produced and their decay products contain high-$p_{\rm T}$ jets. We show that, by applying a cut based on displaced vertices on top of standard kinematical cuts for the search of new particles, the LHC reach can be significantly extended if the decay length is $\gtrsim 100~μ{\rm m}$. In addition, we may measure the lifetime of the target particle through the reconstruction of displaced vertices, which plays an important role in understanding the new physics behind the metastable particles.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2017

Precise neutron lifetime experiment using pulsed neutron beams at J-PARC

The neutron lifetime is one of the basic parameters in the weak interaction, and is used for predicting the light element abundance in the early universe. Our group developed a new setup to measure the lifetime with the goal precision of 0.1% at the polarized beam branch BL05 of MLF, J-PARC. The commissioning data was acquired in 2014 and 2015, and the first set of data to evaluate the lifetime in 2016, which is expected to yield a statistical uncertainty of O(1)%. This paper presents the current analysis results and the future plans to achieve our goal precision.

nucl-ex↗
arXiv2017

Cornering Compressed Gluino at the LHC

We discuss collider search strategies of gluinos which are highly degenerate with the lightest neutralino in mass. This scenario is fairly difficult to probe with conventional search strategies at colliders, and thus may provide a hideaway of supersymmetry. Moreover, such a high degeneracy plays an important role in dark matter physics as the relic abundance of the lightest neutralino is significantly reduced via coannihilation. In this paper, we discuss ways of uncovering this scenario with the help of longevity of gluinos; if the mass difference between the lightest neutralino and gluino is $\lesssim 100$ GeV and squarks are heavier than gluino, then the decay length of the gluino tends to be of the order of the detector-size scale. Such gluinos can be explored in the searches of displaced vertices, disappearing tracks, and anomalously large energy deposit by (meta)stable massive charged particles. We find that these searches are complementary to each other, and by combining their results we may probe a wide range of the compressed gluino region in the LHC experiments.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2015

Probing Bino-Wino Coannihilation at the LHC

We study bino-wino coannihilation scenario in the so-called spread or mini-split supersymmetry. We show that, in this model, a neutral wino has a macroscopic decay length in a wide range of parameter space. This characteristic feature could be observed as a displaced vertex plus missing transverse energy event at the LHC. In this paper, we study the current constraints and future prospects on the scenario based on the displaced vertex search performed by the ATLAS collaboration. It is found that a sizable parameter region can be probed at the 8 TeV LHC run. This search strategy will considerably extend its reach at the next stage of the LHC running, and thus play a crucial role to examine a possibility of bino dark matter in the mini-split type supersymmetric models.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2015

New probes for bino dark matter with coannihilation at the LHC

It has been widely known that bino-like dark matter in supersymmetric theories suffers from over-production. The situation can be improved if the gluino or wino has a mass of O(10) GeV heavier than the bino, sufficiently reducing the bino abundance through co-annihilation. In this scenario, the gluino decays to the bino via squark exchange, and the wino decays to the bino via higgsino exchange. In split SUSY models favoured after the Higgs discovery, the intermediate particles in these decays would be much heavier than gauginos, suppressing the decay of the gluino and wino. This, in addition to the small mass differences, results in long lifetimes for the gluino and wino. We show that searches performed at the LHC for long-lived particles with displaced vertices offer a powerful method to test this scenario.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2015

Probing Bino-Gluino Coannihilation at the LHC

It has been widely known that bino-like dark matter in the supersymmetric (SUSY) theories in general suffers from over-production. The situation can be drastically improved if gluinos have a mass slightly heavier than the bino dark matter as they reduce the dark matter abundance through coannihilation. In this work, we consider such a bino-gluino coannihilation scenario in high-scale SUSY models, which can be actually realized when the squark-mass scale is less than 100-1000 TeV. We study the prospects for exploring this bino-gluino coannihilation scenario at the LHC. We show that the searches for long-lived colored particles with displaced vertices offer a strong tool to test this scenario in collider experiments.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2008

Studies on multiplication effect of noises of PPDs, and a proposal of a new structure to improve the performance

Pixelated Photon Detectors (PPDs) are the most promising semiconductor photodetectors in recent years. One of the issues with the PPD is its high noise rate. As well as random noise, PPD also exhibits so called after-pulsing and optical crosstalk, and these limit the applicable range of its gain as well as its size. By accurately measuring each of these causes of noises independently, we quantitatively evaluated how the performance of the present device is limited by multiplication effect of these noises. With this result and the pulsing mechanism of PPD, we propose a new structure of PPD which could have high gain with low noise.

physics.ins-det↗