arXiv subjects

Justo Martín-Albo

Publications and source records attributed to Justo Martín-Albo.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Discovering Long-lived Particles at DUNE

Long-lived particles (LLPs) arise in many theories beyond the Standard Model. These may be copiously produced from meson decays (or through their mixing with the LLP) at neutrino facilities and leave a visible decay signal in nearby neutrino detectors. We compute the expected sensitivity of the DUNE liquid argon (LAr) and gaseous argon (GAr) near detectors (ND) to light LLP decays. In doing so, we determine the expected backgrounds for both detectors, which have been largely overlooked in the literature, taking into account their angular and energy resolution. We show that searches for LLP decays into muon pairs, or into three pions, would be extremely clean. Conversely, decays into two photons would be affected by large backgrounds from neutrino interactions for both near detectors; finally, the reduced signal efficiency for $e^+ e^-$ pairs leads to a reduced sensitivity for ND-LAr. Our results are first presented in a model-independent way, as a function of the mass of the new state and its lifetime. We also provide detailed calculations for several phenomenological models with axion-like particles (coupled to gluons, to electroweak bosons, or to quark currents). Some of our results may also be of interest for other neutrino facilities using a similar detector technology (e.g. MicroBooNE, SBND, ICARUS, or the T2K Near Detector).

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Neutrino-hydrogen interactions with a high-pressure time projection chamber

We investigate the idea of detecting pure neutrino-hydrogen interactions in a multinuclear target using the transverse kinematic imbalance technique [Lu et al., Phys. Rev. D 92, 051302 (2015)] in a high-pressure time projection chamber (HPTPC). With full solid-angle acceptance, MeV-level proton tracking threshold, state-of-the-art tracking resolution, and an O(100 m^3) gas volume at 10 bar, an HPTPC could provide an opportunity to realize this technique. We propose the use of hydrogen-rich gases in the TPC to achieve high detection purity with large hydrogen mass. With the projected neutrino beam exposure at the DUNE experiment, neutrino-hydrogen events of the order of 10^4 per year with purity above 90% could be achieved with such an HPTPC using methane gas. In this paper, we present a systematic study of the event rate and purity for a variety of argon-alkane mixtures, and examine these gas candidates for the TPC tracking-related properties.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

The NEXT experiment for neutrinoless double beta decay searches

The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC (NEXT) seeks to discover the neutrinoless double beta ($ββ0ν$) decay of $^{136}$Xe using a high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber with electroluminescent amplification. The observation of $ββ0ν$ decay would prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles and that lepton number is not conserved. The NEXT detector concept offers several features of great value for $ββ0ν$-decay searches, including excellent energy resolution, tracking for the active suppression of backgrounds and scalability to large source masses. The initial phase of the NEXT project (2009-2014) was devoted to R&D with two prototypes (DEMO and DBDM) of approximately 1 kg of active xenon mass that demonstrated the performance of the detector concept. During the second phase of the project (2015-2019), the NEXT Collaboration has operated underground at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc, in Spain, a radio-pure detector of about 5 kg of xenon mass. The goal of the current phase is the construction, commissioning and operation of the NEXT-100 detector, with a predicted sensitivity to the $β\beta0ν$ decay half-life of $6\times10^{25}$ years (90% CL) after a run of 3 years. The Collaboration is planning as well a future tonne-scale phase to explore $ββ0ν$-decay half-lives beyond $10^{26}$ years.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2017

Sensitivity of DUNE to long-baseline neutrino oscillation physics

DUNE is an international project, currently in its design phase, for neutrino physics and proton-decay searches. It will consist of two detectors exposed to a megawatt-scale muon neutrino beam that will be produced at Fermilab (Illinois, USA). One detector will record particle interactions near the source of the beam, while a second, much larger, detector comprising four 10-kilotonne liquid argon TPCs will be installed at a depth of 1.5 km at SURF (South Dakota, USA), about 1300 kilometres away of the neutrino source. Among the primary scientific goals of DUNE is the precision measurement of the parameters that govern neutrino mixing, including those still unknown: the octant in which the $θ_{23}$ mixing angle lies, the neutrino mass ordering and the value of the CP violation phase. This paper discusses the sensitivity of the DUNE experiment to these parameters.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2015

Phenomenology of neutrinoless double beta decay

This paper reviews the current status and future outlook of neutrinoless double beta decay searches, which try to provide an answer to the fundamental question of whether neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana particles.

hep-ex↗