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M. Nakahara

Publications and source records attributed to M. Nakahara.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

The performance of the TA$\times$4 surface detector array: 4.3 years of the first-half expansion

The Telescope Array (TA) experiment aims to reveal the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) by observing air showers using surface detectors (SDs), which spread over an area of approximately 700 km$^2$, and fluorescence detectors (FDs) viewing the skies above the SD array. The TA experiment has been observing UHECRs since 2008, and has reported an indication of clustering in the arrival directions of cosmic-ray events with energy greater than 57 EeV. To improve the exposure for anisotropy studies of UHECRs, the TA$\times$4 upgrade was designed to expand the observational area by approximately 2,000 km$^2$ with 500 additional SDs. Half of the planned upgrade, consisting of 257 SDs, was completed, and the newly installed array began operation in 2019. In addition to the expanded SD array, two FD stations were constructed for the TA$\times$4 experiment. In this paper, we present a study of the performance of the expanded SD array, including the energy resolution, angular resolution, and effective aperture, over the first 4.3 years of data acquisition. While the effective aperture varied initially due to changing detector states, it has stabilized since June 2023 with more than 90% operational SDs. Furthermore, a new inter-tower trigger system was implemented to connect six new communication towers to form two geographically separated arrays, increasing the effective aperture. The time variation of this effective aperture, the resulting total exposure of approximately 3,500 km$^2$ sr yr, and a comparison with the original TA SD array are presented to demonstrate the performance of the expanded array.

astro-ph.IM

Searching for EeV photons with Telescope Array Surface Detector and neural networks

Ultra-high-energy photons play an important role in probing astrophysical models and beyond-Standard-Model scenarios. We report updated limits on the diffuse photon flux using Telescope Array's Surface Detector data collected over 14 years of operation. Our method employs a neural network classifier to effectively distinguish between proton-induced and photon-induced events. The input data include both reconstructed composition-sensitive parameters and raw time-resolved signals registered by the Surface Detector stations. To mitigate biases from Monte Carlo simulations, we fine-tune the network with a subset of experimental data. The number of observed photon candidates is found to be consistent with the expected hadronic background, yielding upper limits on photon flux $Φ_γ(E_γ> 10^{19} \text{eV}) < 2.3 \cdot 10^{-3} $, and $Φ_γ(E_γ> 10^{20} \text{eV}) < 3.0 \cdot 10^{-4} $ $ (\text{km}^2 \cdot \text{sr} \cdot \text{yr})^{-1} $.

astro-ph.GA

Cosmic ray mass composition measurement in the energy range from $10^{16.5}$ eV to $10^{18.5}$ eV observed with the TALE hybrid detector

We report on the cosmic ray mass composition measured by the Telescope Array Low-energy Extension (TALE) hybrid detector. The TALE detector consists of a fluorescence detector (FD) station with 10 FD telescopes located at the Telescope Array (TA) Middle Drum FD Station (itself made up of 14 FD telescopes), and a surface detector (SD) array of scintillators. The array consists of 40 SDs with 400 m spacing and 40 SDs with 600 m spacing. In this paper, we present results on the measurement of the depth of shower maxima ($X_\mathrm{max}$) in the energy range from $10^{16.5}$ eV to $10^{18.5}$ eV collected over five years of the TALE hybrid detector. The $X_\mathrm{max}$ distributions were analyzed and compared with Monte Carlo simulations of proton, helium, nitrogen, and iron primaries, using the QGSJet II-04 hadronic interaction model. Our results indicate that the elongation rate of the mean $X_\mathrm{max}$, which is defined as the slope of $\langle X_\mathrm{max} \rangle$ versus cosmic ray energy, exhibits a break around $10^{17}$ eV. Up to this energy, the composition becomes increasingly heavy, characterized by a growing dominance of heavy nuclei and a steadily decreasing fraction of light primaries. Beyond this energy, the proton fraction increases significantly with energy. These findings suggest a transition from Galactic to extra-Galactic cosmic ray sources around the so-called second knee.

astro-ph.HE

Observation of Declination Dependence in the Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum

We report on an observation of the difference between northern and southern skies of the ultrahigh energy cosmic ray energy spectrum with a significance of ${\sim}8σ$. We use measurements from the two largest experiments$\unicode{x2014}$the Telescope Array observing the northern hemisphere and the Pierre Auger Observatory viewing the southern hemisphere. Since the comparison of two measurements from different observatories introduces the issue of possible systematic differences between detectors and analyses, we validate the methodology of the comparison by examining the region of the sky where the apertures of the two observatories overlap. Although the spectra differ in this region, we find that there is only a $1.8σ$ difference between the spectrum measurements when anisotropic regions are removed and a fiducial cut in the aperture is applied.

astro-ph.HE

Three-dimensional skyrmions in spin-2 Bose-Einstein condensates

We introduce topologically stable three-dimensional skyrmions in the cyclic and biaxial nematic phases of a spin-2 Bose-Einstein condensate. These skyrmions exhibit exceptionally high mapping degrees resulting from the versatile symmetries of the corresponding order parameters. We show how these structures can be created in existing experimental setups and study their temporal evolution and lifetime by numerically solving the three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equations for realistic parameter values. Although the biaxial nematic and cyclic phases are observed to be unstable against transition towards the ferromagnetic phase, their lifetimes are long enough for the skyrmions to be imprinted and detected experimentally.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Quantum knots in Bose-Einstein condensates created by counterdiabatic control

We theoretically study the creation of knot structures in the polar phase of spin-1 BECs using the counterdiabatic protocol in an unusual fashion. We provide an analytic solution to the evolution of the external magnetic field that is used to imprint the knots. As confirmed by our simulations using the full three-dimensional spin-1 Gross-Pitaevskii equation, our method allows for the precise control of the Hopf charge as well as the creation time of the knots. The knots with Hopf charge exceeding unity display multiple nested Hopf links.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Counter-diabatic vortex pump in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates

Topological phase imprinting is a well-established technique for deterministic vortex creation in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates of alkali metal atoms. It was recently shown that counter-diabatic quantum control may accelerate vortex creation in comparison to the standard adiabatic protocol and suppress the atom loss due to nonadiabatic transitions. Here we apply this technique, assisted by an optical plug, for vortex pumping to theoretically show that sequential phase imprinting up to 20 cycles generates a vortex with a very large winding number. Our method significantly increases the fidelity of the pump for rapid pumping compared to the case without the counter-diabatic control, leading to the highest angular momentum per particle reported to date for the vortex pump. Our studies are based on numerical integration of the three-dimensional multi-component Gross-Pitaevskii equation which conveniently yields the density profiles, phase profiles, angular momentum, and other physically important quantities of the spin-1 system. Our results motivate the experimental realization of the vortex pump and studies of the rich physics it involves.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Entanglement of Multipartite Fermionic Coherent States for Pseudo Hermitian Hamiltonians

In this paper the entanglement of multi-qubit fermionic pseudo Hermitian coherent states (FPHCS) described by anticommutative Grassmann numbers is studied. The pseudo-Hermitian versions of the well known maximally entangled pure states such as Bell and GHZ, W and biseparable states are introduced through integrating over the tensor products of FPHCSs with suitable choice of Grassmannian weight functions. Meanwhile as an illustration, the method is applied to tensor product of 2 and 3 qubit pseudo Hermitian systems. Then the measures of concurrence and average entropy are applied to quantify the entanglement of the pseudo two and three qubit states respectively.

quant-ph

Left-Right Symmetric Model from Geometrical Formulation of Gauge Theory in $M_4 \times Z_2 \times Z_2$

The left-right symmetric model (LRSM) with gauge group $SU(2)_{L} \times SU(2)_{R} \times U(1)_{B-L}$ is reconstructed from the geometric formulation of gauge theory in $M_4 \times Z_2 \times Z_2$ where $M_4$ is the four-dimensional Minkowski space and $Z_2 \times Z_2$ the discrete space with four points. The geometrical structure of this model becomes clearer compared with other works based on noncommutative geometry. As a result, the Yukawa coupling terms and the Higgs potential are derived in more restricted forms than in the standard LRSM.

hep-th