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J. F. Beacom

Publications and source records attributed to J. F. Beacom.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2024

DUNE Phase II: Scientific Opportunities, Detector Concepts, Technological Solutions

The international collaboration designing and constructing the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) has developed a two-phase strategy toward the implementation of this leading-edge, large-scale science project. The 2023 report of the US Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) reaffirmed this vision and strongly endorsed DUNE Phase I and Phase II, as did the European Strategy for Particle Physics. While the construction of the DUNE Phase I is well underway, this White Paper focuses on DUNE Phase II planning. DUNE Phase-II consists of a third and fourth far detector (FD) module, an upgraded near detector complex, and an enhanced 2.1 MW beam. The fourth FD module is conceived as a "Module of Opportunity", aimed at expanding the physics opportunities, in addition to supporting the core DUNE science program, with more advanced technologies. This document highlights the increased science opportunities offered by the DUNE Phase II near and far detectors, including long-baseline neutrino oscillation physics, neutrino astrophysics, and physics beyond the standard model. It describes the DUNE Phase II near and far detector technologies and detector design concepts that are currently under consideration. A summary of key R&D goals and prototyping phases needed to realize the Phase II detector technical designs is also provided. DUNE's Phase II detectors, along with the increased beam power, will complete the full scope of DUNE, enabling a multi-decadal program of groundbreaking science with neutrinos.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2024

Doping Liquid Argon with Xenon in ProtoDUNE Single-Phase: Effects on Scintillation Light

Doping of liquid argon TPCs (LArTPCs) with a small concentration of xenon is a technique for light-shifting and facilitates the detection of the liquid argon scintillation light. In this paper, we present the results of the first doping test ever performed in a kiloton-scale LArTPC. From February to May 2020, we carried out this special run in the single-phase DUNE Far Detector prototype (ProtoDUNE-SP) at CERN, featuring 720 t of total liquid argon mass with 410 t of fiducial mass. A 5.4 ppm nitrogen contamination was present during the xenon doping campaign. The goal of the run was to measure the light and charge response of the detector to the addition of xenon, up to a concentration of 18.8 ppm. The main purpose was to test the possibility for reduction of non-uniformities in light collection, caused by deployment of photon detectors only within the anode planes. Light collection was analysed as a function of the xenon concentration, by using the pre-existing photon detection system (PDS) of ProtoDUNE-SP and an additional smaller set-up installed specifically for this run. In this paper we first summarize our current understanding of the argon-xenon energy transfer process and the impact of the presence of nitrogen in argon with and without xenon dopant. We then describe the key elements of ProtoDUNE-SP and the injection method deployed. Two dedicated photon detectors were able to collect the light produced by xenon and the total light. The ratio of these components was measured to be about 0.65 as 18.8 ppm of xenon were injected. We performed studies of the collection efficiency as a function of the distance between tracks and light detectors, demonstrating enhanced uniformity of response for the anode-mounted PDS. We also show that xenon doping can substantially recover light losses due to contamination of the liquid argon by nitrogen.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2024

First Measurement of the Total Inelastic Cross-Section of Positively-Charged Kaons on Argon at Energies Between 5.0 and 7.5 GeV

ProtoDUNE Single-Phase (ProtoDUNE-SP) is a 770-ton liquid argon time projection chamber that operated in a hadron test beam at the CERN Neutrino Platform in 2018. We present a measurement of the total inelastic cross section of charged kaons on argon as a function of kaon energy using 6 and 7 GeV/$c$ beam momentum settings. The flux-weighted average of the extracted inelastic cross section at each beam momentum setting was measured to be 380$\pm$26 mbarns for the 6 GeV/$c$ setting and 379$\pm$35 mbarns for the 7 GeV/$c$ setting.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2024

Supernova Rates and Luminosity Functions from ASAS-SN I: 2014--2017 Type Ia SNe and Their Subtypes

We present the volumetric rates and luminosity functions (LFs) of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) from the $V$-band All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) catalogues spanning discovery dates from UTC 2014-01-26 to UTC 2017-12-29. Our standard sample consists of 404 SNe Ia with $m_{V,\mathrm{peak}}<17$ mag and Galactic latitude $|b|>15^{\circ}$. Our results are both statistically more precise and systematically more robust than previous studies due to the large sample size and high spectroscopic completeness. We make completeness corrections based on both the apparent and absolute magnitudes by simulating the detection of SNe Ia in ASAS-SN light curves. We find a total volumetric rate for all subtypes of $R_{\mathrm{tot}}=2.28^{+0.20}_{-0.20}\,\times 10^{4}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}\,\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,h^{3}_{70}$ for $M_{V,\mathrm{peak}}<-16.5$ mag ($R_{\mathrm{tot}}=1.91^{+0.12}_{-0.12}\,\times 10^{4}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}\,\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,h^{3}_{70}$ for $M_{V,\mathrm{peak}}<-17.5$ mag) at the median redshift of our sample, $z_{\mathrm{med}}=0.024$. This is in agreement ($1σ$) with the local volumetric rates found by previous studies. We also compile luminosity functions (LFs) for the entire sample as well as for subtypes of SNe Ia for the first time. The major subtypes with more than one SN include Ia-91bg, Ia-91T, Ia-CSM, and Ia-03fg with total rates of $R_{\mathrm{Ia-91bg}}=1.4^{+0.5}_{-0.5} \times 10^{3}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}\,\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,h^{3}_{70}$, $R_{\mathrm{Ia-91T}}=8.5^{+1.6}_{-1.7} \times 10^{2}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}\,\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,h^{3}_{70}$, $R_{\mathrm{Ia-CSM}}=10^{+7}_{-7}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}\,\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,h^{3}_{70}$, and $R_{\mathrm{Ia-03fg}}=30^{+20}_{-20}\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}\,\mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}\,h^{3}_{70}$, respectively. We estimate a mean host extinction of $E(V-r)\approx 0.2$ mag based on the shift between our $V$-band and the ZTF $r$-band LFs.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2024

Performance of a modular ton-scale pixel-readout liquid argon time projection chamber

The Module-0 Demonstrator is a single-phase 600 kg liquid argon time projection chamber operated as a prototype for the DUNE liquid argon near detector. Based on the ArgonCube design concept, Module-0 features a novel 80k-channel pixelated charge readout and advanced high-coverage photon detection system. In this paper, we present an analysis of an eight-day data set consisting of 25 million cosmic ray events collected in the spring of 2021. We use this sample to demonstrate the imaging performance of the charge and light readout systems as well as the signal correlations between the two. We also report argon purity and detector uniformity measurements, and provide comparisons to detector simulations.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2023

The DUNE Far Detector Vertical Drift Technology, Technical Design Report

DUNE is an international experiment dedicated to addressing some of the questions at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics, including the mystifying preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe. The dual-site experiment will employ an intense neutrino beam focused on a near and a far detector as it aims to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and to make high-precision measurements of the PMNS matrix parameters, including the CP-violating phase. It will also stand ready to observe supernova neutrino bursts, and seeks to observe nucleon decay as a signature of a grand unified theory underlying the standard model. The DUNE far detector implements liquid argon time-projection chamber (LArTPC) technology, and combines the many tens-of-kiloton fiducial mass necessary for rare event searches with the sub-centimeter spatial resolution required to image those events with high precision. The addition of a photon detection system enhances physics capabilities for all DUNE physics drivers and opens prospects for further physics explorations. Given its size, the far detector will be implemented as a set of modules, with LArTPC designs that differ from one another as newer technologies arise. In the vertical drift LArTPC design, a horizontal cathode bisects the detector, creating two stacked drift volumes in which ionization charges drift towards anodes at either the top or bottom. The anodes are composed of perforated PCB layers with conductive strips, enabling reconstruction in 3D. Light-trap-style photon detection modules are placed both on the cryostat's side walls and on the central cathode where they are optically powered. This Technical Design Report describes in detail the technical implementations of each subsystem of this LArTPC that, together with the other far detector modules and the near detector, will enable DUNE to achieve its physics goals.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2023

PEARLS: JWST counterparts of micro-Jy radio sources in the Time Domain Field

The Time Domain Field (TDF) near the North Ecliptic Pole in JWST's continuous-viewing zone will become a premier "blank field" for extragalactic science. JWST/NIRCam data in a 16 arcmin$^2$ portion of the TDF identify 4.4 $μ$m counterparts for 62 of 63 3 GHz sources with S(3 GHz) > 5 μJy. The one unidentified radio source may be a lobe of a nearby Seyfert galaxy, or it may be an infrared-faint radio source. The bulk properties of the radio-host galaxies are consistent with those found by previous work: redshifts range from 0.14 to 4.4 with a median redshift of 1.33. The radio emission arises primarily from star formation in $\sim 2/3$ of the sample and from an active galactic nucleus in $\sim 1/3$, but just over half the sample shows evidence for an AGN either in the spectral energy distribution or by radio excess. All but three counterparts are brighter than magnitude 23 AB at 4.4 $μ$m, and the exquisite resolution of JWST identifies correct counterparts for sources for which observations with lower angular resolution would mis-identify a nearby bright source as the counterpart when the correct one is faint and red. Up to 11% of counterparts might have been unidentified or misidentified absent NIRCam observations.

astro-ph.GA↗
arXiv2023

Reconstruction of interactions in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector with Pandora

The Pandora Software Development Kit and algorithm libraries provide pattern-recognition logic essential to the reconstruction of particle interactions in liquid argon time projection chamber detectors. Pandora is the primary event reconstruction software used at ProtoDUNE-SP, a prototype for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment far detector. ProtoDUNE-SP, located at CERN, is exposed to a charged-particle test beam. This paper gives an overview of the Pandora reconstruction algorithms and how they have been tailored for use at ProtoDUNE-SP. In complex events with numerous cosmic-ray and beam background particles, the simulated reconstruction and identification efficiency for triggered test-beam particles is above 80% for the majority of particle type and beam momentum combinations. Specifically, simulated 1 GeV/$c$ charged pions and protons are correctly reconstructed and identified with efficiencies of 86.1$\pm0.6$% and 84.1$\pm0.6$%, respectively. The efficiencies measured for test-beam data are shown to be within 5% of those predicted by the simulation.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2023

The TeV Sun Rises: Discovery of Gamma rays from the Quiescent Sun with HAWC

We report the first detection of a TeV gamma-ray flux from the solar disk (6.3$σ$), based on 6.1 years of data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory. The 0.5--2.6 TeV spectrum is well fit by a power law, dN/dE = $A (E/1 \text{ TeV})^{-γ}$, with $A = (1.6 \pm 0.3) \times 10^{-12}$ TeV$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ and $γ= -3.62 \pm 0.14$. The flux shows a strong indication of anticorrelation with solar activity. These results extend the bright, hard GeV emission from the disk observed with Fermi-LAT, seemingly due to hadronic Galactic cosmic rays showering on nuclei in the solar atmosphere. However, current theoretical models are unable to explain the details of how solar magnetic fields shape these interactions. HAWC's TeV detection thus deepens the mysteries of the solar-disk emission.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2023

Impact of cross-section uncertainties on supernova neutrino spectral parameter fitting in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

A primary goal of the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is to measure the $\mathcal{O}(10)$ MeV neutrinos produced by a Galactic core-collapse supernova if one should occur during the lifetime of the experiment. The liquid-argon-based detectors planned for DUNE are expected to be uniquely sensitive to the $ν_e$ component of the supernova flux, enabling a wide variety of physics and astrophysics measurements. A key requirement for a correct interpretation of these measurements is a good understanding of the energy-dependent total cross section $σ(E_ν)$ for charged-current $ν_e$ absorption on argon. In the context of a simulated extraction of supernova $ν_e$ spectral parameters from a toy analysis, we investigate the impact of $σ(E_ν)$ modeling uncertainties on DUNE's supernova neutrino physics sensitivity for the first time. We find that the currently large theoretical uncertainties on $σ(E_ν)$ must be substantially reduced before the $ν_e$ flux parameters can be extracted reliably: in the absence of external constraints, a measurement of the integrated neutrino luminosity with less than 10\% bias with DUNE requires $σ(E_ν)$ to be known to about 5%. The neutrino spectral shape parameters can be known to better than 10% for a 20% uncertainty on the cross-section scale, although they will be sensitive to uncertainties on the shape of $σ(E_ν)$. A direct measurement of low-energy $ν_e$-argon scattering would be invaluable for improving the theoretical precision to the needed level.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2023

Identification and reconstruction of low-energy electrons in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector

Measurements of electrons from $ν_e$ interactions are crucial for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) neutrino oscillation program, as well as searches for physics beyond the standard model, supernova neutrino detection, and solar neutrino measurements. This article describes the selection and reconstruction of low-energy (Michel) electrons in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector. ProtoDUNE-SP is one of the prototypes for the DUNE far detector, built and operated at CERN as a charged particle test beam experiment. A sample of low-energy electrons produced by the decay of cosmic muons is selected with a purity of 95%. This sample is used to calibrate the low-energy electron energy scale with two techniques. An electron energy calibration based on a cosmic ray muon sample uses calibration constants derived from measured and simulated cosmic ray muon events. Another calibration technique makes use of the theoretically well-understood Michel electron energy spectrum to convert reconstructed charge to electron energy. In addition, the effects of detector response to low-energy electron energy scale and its resolution including readout electronics threshold effects are quantified. Finally, the relation between the theoretical and reconstructed low-energy electron energy spectrum is derived and the energy resolution is characterized. The low-energy electron selection presented here accounts for about 75% of the total electron deposited energy. After the addition of lost energy using a Monte Carlo simulation, the energy resolution improves from about 40% to 25% at 50~MeV. These results are used to validate the expected capabilities of the DUNE far detector to reconstruct low-energy electrons.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2023

ASAS-SN Sky Patrol V2.0

The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) began observing in late-2011 and has been imaging the entire sky with nightly cadence since late 2017. A core goal of ASAS-SN is to release as much useful data as possible to the community. Working towards this goal, in 2017 the first ASAS-SN Sky Patrol was established as a tool for the community to obtain light curves from our data with no preselection of targets. Then, in 2020 we released static V-band photometry from 2013--2018 for 61 million sources. Here we describe the next generation ASAS-SN Sky Patrol, Version 2.0, which represents a major progression of this effort. Sky Patrol 2.0 provides continuously updated light curves for 111 million targets derived from numerous external catalogs of stars, galaxies, and solar system objects. We are generally able to serve photometry data within an hour of observation. Moreover, with a novel database architecture, the catalogs and light curves can be queried at unparalleled speed, returning thousands of light curves within seconds. Light curves can be accessed through a web interface (http://asas-sn.ifa.hawaii.edu/skypatrol/) or a Python client (https://asas-sn.ifa.hawaii.edu/documentation). The Python client can be used to retrieve up to 1 million light curves, generally limited only by bandwidth. This paper gives an updated overview of our survey, introduces the new Sky Patrol, and describes its system architecture. These results provide significant new capabilities to the community for pursuing multi-messenger and time-domain astronomy.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2023

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on $10^3$ pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype.

physics.comp-ph↗
arXiv2023

The ASAS-SN Bright Supernova Catalog -- V. 2018-2020

We catalog the 443 bright supernovae discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) in $2018-2020$ along with the 519 supernovae recovered by ASAS-SN and 516 additional $m_{peak}\leq18$ mag supernovae missed by ASAS-SN. Our statistical analysis focuses primarily on the 984 supernovae discovered or recovered in ASAS-SN $g$-band observations. The complete sample of 2427 ASAS-SN supernovae includes earlier $V$-band samples and unrecovered supernovae. For each supernova, we identify the host galaxy, its UV to mid-IR photometry, and the offset of the supernova from the center of the host. Updated light curves, redshifts, classifications, and host galaxy identifications supersede earlier results. With the increase of the limiting magnitude to $g\leq18$ mag, the ASAS-SN sample is roughly complete up to $m_{peak}=16.7$ mag and is $90\%$ complete for $m_{peak}\leq17.0$ mag. This is an increase from the $V$-band sample where it was roughly complete up to $m_{peak}=16.2$ mag and $70\%$ complete for $m_{peak}\leq17.0$ mag.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2023

Optical/$γ$-ray blazar flare correlations: understanding the high-energy emission process using ASAS-SN and Fermi light curves

Using blazar light curves from the optical All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) and the $γ$-ray \textit{Fermi}-LAT telescope, we performed the most extensive statistical correlation study between both bands, using a sample of 1,180 blazars. This is almost an order of magnitude larger than other recent studies. Blazars represent more than 98\% of the AGNs detected by \textit{Fermi}-LAT and are the brightest $γ$-ray sources in the extragalactic sky. They are essential for studying the physical properties of astrophysical jets from central black holes. However, their $γ$-ray flare mechanism is not fully understood. Multi-wavelength correlations help constrain the dominant mechanisms of blazar variability. We search for temporal relationships between optical and $γ$-ray bands. Using a Bayesian Block Decomposition, we detect 1414 optical and 510 $γ$-ray flares, we find a strong correlation between both bands. Among all the flares, we find 321 correlated flares from 133 blazars, and derive an average rest-frame time delay of only 1.1$_{-8.5}^{+7.1}$ days, with no difference between the flat-spectrum radio quasars, BL Lacertae-like objects or low, intermediate, and high-synchrotron peaked blazar classes. Our time-delay limit rules out the hadronic proton-synchrotron model as the driver for non-orphan flares and suggests a leptonic single-zone model. Limiting our search to well-defined light curves and removing 976 potential but unclear ``orphan'' flares, we find 191 (13\%) and 115 (22\%) clear ``orphan'' optical and $γ$-ray flares. The presence of ``orphan'' flares in both bands challenges the standard one-zone blazar flare leptonic model and suggests multi-zone synchrotron sites or a hadronic model for some blazars.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2022

Separation of track- and shower-like energy deposits in ProtoDUNE-SP using a convolutional neural network

Liquid argon time projection chamber detector technology provides high spatial and calorimetric resolutions on the charged particles traversing liquid argon. As a result, the technology has been used in a number of recent neutrino experiments, and is the technology of choice for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). In order to perform high precision measurements of neutrinos in the detector, final state particles need to be effectively identified, and their energy accurately reconstructed. This article proposes an algorithm based on a convolutional neural network to perform the classification of energy deposits and reconstructed particles as track-like or arising from electromagnetic cascades. Results from testing the algorithm on data from ProtoDUNE-SP, a prototype of the DUNE far detector, are presented. The network identifies track- and shower-like particles, as well as Michel electrons, with high efficiency. The performance of the algorithm is consistent between data and simulation.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2022

Scintillation light detection in the 6-m drift-length ProtoDUNE Dual Phase liquid argon TPC

DUNE is a dual-site experiment for long-baseline neutrino oscillation studies, neutrino astrophysics and nucleon decay searches. ProtoDUNE Dual Phase (DP) is a 6x6x6m3 liquid argon time-projection-chamber (LArTPC) that recorded cosmic-muon data at the CERN Neutrino Platform in 2019-2020 as a prototype of the DUNE Far Detector. Charged particles propagating through the LArTPC produce ionization and scintillation light. The scintillation light signal in these detectors can provide the trigger for non-beam events. In addition, it adds precise timing capabilities and improves the calorimetry measurements. In ProtoDUNE-DP, scintillation and electroluminescence light produced by cosmic muons in the LArTPC is collected by photomultiplier tubes placed up to 7 m away from the ionizing track. In this paper, the ProtoDUNE-DP photon detection system performance is evaluated with a particular focus on the different wavelength shifters, such as PEN and TPB, and the use of Xe-doped LAr, considering its future use in giant LArTPCs. The scintillation light production and propagation processes are analyzed and a comparison of simulation to data is performed, improving understanding of the liquid argon properties

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2022

Low Background kTon-Scale Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers

We find that it is possible to increase sensitivity to low energy physics in a third or fourth DUNE-like module with careful controls over radiopurity and some modifications to a detector similar to the DUNE Far Detector design. In particular, sensitivity to supernova and solar neutrinos can be enhanced with improved MeV-scale reach. A neutrinoless double beta decay search with $^{136}$Xe loading appears feasible. Furthermore, sensitivity to Weakly-Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) Dark Matter (DM) becomes competitive with the planned world program in such a detector, offering a unique seasonal variation detection that is characteristic for the nature of WIMPs.

physics.ins-det↗