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P. Boyle

Publications and source records attributed to P. Boyle.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2022

The Future of High Energy Physics Software and Computing

Software and Computing (S&C) are essential to all High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments and many theoretical studies. The size and complexity of S&C are now commensurate with that of experimental instruments, playing a critical role in experimental design, data acquisition/instrumental control, reconstruction, and analysis. Furthermore, S&C often plays a leading role in driving the precision of theoretical calculations and simulations. Within this central role in HEP, S&C has been immensely successful over the last decade. This report looks forward to the next decade and beyond, in the context of the 2021 Particle Physics Community Planning Exercise ("Snowmass") organized by the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) of the American Physical Society.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2019

LRP 2020 Whitepaper: The Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD)

The Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD) is a next-generation radio telescope, proposed for construction to start immediately. CHORD is a pan-Canadian project, designed to work with and build on the success of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). It is an ultra-wideband, "large-N, small-D" telescope, consisting of a central array of 512x6-m dishes, supported by a pair of distant outrigger stations, each equipped with CHIME-like cylinders and a 64-dish array. CHORD will measure the distribution of matter over a huge swath of the Universe, detect and localize tens of thousands of Fast RadioBursts (FRBs), and undertake cutting-edge measurements of fundamental physics.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2019

Registration of retinal images from Public Health by minimising an error between vessels using an affine model with radial distortions

In order to estimate a registration model of eye fundus images made of an affinity and two radial distortions, we introduce an estimation criterion based on an error between the vessels. In [1], we estimated this model by minimising the error between characteristics points. In this paper, the detected vessels are selected using the circle and ellipse equations of the overlap area boundaries deduced from our model. Our method successfully registers 96 % of the 271 pairs in a Public Health dataset acquired mostly with different cameras. This is better than our previous method [1] and better than three other state-of-the-art methods. On a publicly available dataset, ours still better register the images than the reference method.

physics.med-ph↗
arXiv2019

Star Formation in Different Environments: The Initial Mass Function

The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property of star formation, offering key insight into the physics driving the process as well as informing our understanding of stellar populations, their by-products, and their impact on the surrounding medium. While the IMF appears to be fairly uniform in the Milky Way disk, it is not yet known how the IMF might behave across a wide range of environments, such as those with extreme gas temperatures and densities, high pressures, and low metallicities. We discuss new opportunities for measuring the IMF in such environments in the coming decade with JWST, WFIRST, and thirty-meter class telescopes. For the first time, we will be able to measure the high-mass slope and peak of the IMF via direct star counts for massive star clusters across the Milky Way and Local Group, providing stringent constraints for star formation theory and laying the groundwork for understanding distant and unresolved stellar systems.

astro-ph.GA↗
arXiv2017

Isospin breaking corrections to meson masses and the hadronic vacuum polarization: a comparative study

We calculate the strong isospin breaking and QED corrections to meson masses and the hadronic vacuum polarization in an exploratory study on a $64\times24^3$ lattice with an inverse lattice spacing of $a^{-1}=1.78$ GeV and an isospin symmetric pion mass of $m_\pi=340$ MeV. We include QED in an electro-quenched setup using two different methods, a stochastic and a perturbative approach. We find that the electromagnetic correction to the leading hadronic contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon is smaller than $1\%$ for the up quark and $0.1\%$ for the strange quark, although it should be noted that this is obtained using unphysical light quark masses. In addition to the results themselves, we compare the precision which can be reached for the same computational cost using each method. Such a comparison is also made for the meson electromagnetic mass-splittings.

hep-lat↗
arXiv2015

A Directional Gamma-Ray Detector Based on Scintillator Plates

A simple device for determining the azimuthal location of a source of gamma radiation, using ideas from astrophysical gamma-ray burst detection, is described. A compact and robust detector built from eight identical modules, each comprising a plate of CsI(Tl) scintillator coupled to a photomultiplier tube, can locate a point source of gamma rays with degree-scale precision by comparing the count rates in the different modules. Sensitivity to uniform environmental background is minimal.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2014

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS)

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) small explorer spacecraft provides simultaneous spectra and images of the photosphere, chromosphere, transition region, and corona with 0.33-0.4 arcsec spatial resolution, 2 s temporal resolution and 1 km/s velocity resolution over a field-of-view of up to 175 arcsec x 175 arcsec. IRIS was launched into a Sun-synchronous orbit on 27 June 2013 using a Pegasus-XL rocket and consists of a 19-cm UV telescope that feeds a slit-based dual-bandpass imaging spectrograph. IRIS obtains spectra in passbands from 1332-1358, 1389-1407 and 2783-2834 Angstrom including bright spectral lines formed in the chromosphere (Mg II h 2803 Angstrom and Mg II k 2796 Angstrom) and transition region (C II 1334/1335 Angstrom and Si IV 1394/1403 Angstrom). Slit-jaw images in four different passbands (C II 1330, Si IV 1400, Mg II k 2796 and Mg II wing 2830 Angstrom) can be taken simultaneously with spectral rasters that sample regions up to 130 arcsec x 175 arcsec at a variety of spatial samplings (from 0.33 arcsec and up). IRIS is sensitive to emission from plasma at temperatures between 5000 K and 10 MK and will advance our understanding of the flow of mass and energy through an interface region, formed by the chromosphere and transition region, between the photosphere and corona. This highly structured and dynamic region not only acts as the conduit of all mass and energy feeding into the corona and solar wind, it also requires an order of magnitude more energy to heat than the corona and solar wind combined. The IRIS investigation includes a strong numerical modeling component based on advanced radiative-MHD codes to facilitate interpretation of observations of this complex region. Approximately eight Gbytes of data (after compression) are acquired by IRIS each day and made available for unrestricted use within a few days of the observation.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2013

Interactions of Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere: Growth Curves Revisited

Measurements of cosmic-ray abundances on balloons are affected by interactions in the residual atmosphere above the balloon. Corrections for such interactions are particularly important for observations of rare secondary particles such as boron, antiprotons and positrons. These corrections can either be calculated if the relevant cross sections in the atmosphere are known, or may be empirically determined by extrapolation of the "growth curves", i. e. the individual particle intensities as functions of atmospheric depth. The growth-curve technique is particularly attractive for long-duration balloon flights where the periodic daily altitude variations permit rather precise determinations of the corresponding particle intensity variations. We determine growth curves for nuclei from boron (Z=5) to iron (Z=26), using data from the 2006 Arctic balloon flight of the TRACER detector for cosmic-ray nuclei, and we compare the growth curves with predictions from published cross section values. In general, good agreement is observed. We then study the boron/carbon abundance ratio and derive a simple and energy-independent correction term for this ratio. We emphasize that the growth-curve technique can be developed further to provide highly accurate tests of published interaction cross section values.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2012

The boron-to-carbon abundance ratio and Galactic propagation of cosmic radiation

In two long-duration balloon flights in 2003 and 2006, the TRACER cosmic-ray detector has measured the energy spectra and the absolute intensities of the cosmic-ray nuclei from boron (Z = 5) to iron (Z = 26) up to very high energies. In particular, the second flight has led to results on the energy spectrum of the secondary boron nuclei, and on the boron abundance relative to that of the heavier primary parent nuclei, commonly quantified as the "B/C abundance ratio". The energy dependence of this ratio, now available up to about 2 TeV per amu, provides a measure for the energy dependence of cosmic-ray propagation through the Galaxy, and for the shape of the cosmic-ray source energy spectrum. We use a Leaky-Box approximation of cosmic-ray propagation to obtain constraints on the relevant parameters on the basis of the results of TRACER and of other measurements. This analysis suggests that the source energy spectrum is a relatively soft power law in energy E^{-\alpha}, with spectral exponent \alpha = 2.37 \pm 0.12, and that the propagation path length \Lambda(E) is described by a power law in energy with exponent \delta = 0.53 \pm 0.06, but may assume a constant residual value \Lambda_0 at high energy. The value of \Lambda_0 is not well constrained but should be less than about 0.8 g cm^{-2}. Finally, we compare the data with numerical solutions of a diffusive reacceleration model, which also indicates a soft source spectrum.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2011

Energy spectra of primary and secondary cosmic-ray nuclei measured with TRACER

The TRACER cosmic-ray detector, first flown on long-duration balloon (LDB) in 2003 for observations of the major primary cosmic-ray nuclei from oxygen (Z=8) to iron (Z=26), has been upgraded to also measure the energies of the lighter nuclei, including the secondary species boron (Z=5). The instrument was used in another LDB flight in 2006. The properties and performance of the modified detector system are described, and the analysis of the data from the 2006 flight is discussed. The energy spectra of the primary nuclei carbon (Z=6), oxygen, and iron over the range from 1 GeV amu$^{-1}$ to 2 TeV amu$^{-1}$ are reported. The data for oxygen and iron are found to be in good agreement with the results of the previous TRACER flight. The measurement of the energy spectrum of boron also extends into the TeV amu$^{-1}$ region. The relative abundances of the primary nuclei, such as carbon, oxygen, and iron, above $\sim10$ GeV amu$^{-1}$ are independent of energy, while the boron abundance, i.e. the B/C abundance ratio, decreases with energy as expected. However, there is an indication that the previously reported $E^{-0.6}$ dependence of the B/C ratio does not continue to the highest energies.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2010

Elemental Spectra from the CREAM-I Flight

The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) is a balloon-borne experiment designed to measure the composition and energy spectra of cosmic rays of charge Z = 1 to 26 up to an energy of ~ 10^15 eV. CREAM had two successful flights on long-duration balloons (LDB) launched from Mc- Murdo Station, Antarctica, in December 2004 and December 2005. CREAM-I achieves a substantial measurement redundancy by employing multiple detector systems, namely a Timing Charge Detector and a Silicon Charge Detector (SCD) for particle identification, and a Transition Radiation Detector and a sampling tungsten/scintillating-fiber ionization calorimeter (CAL) for energy measurement. In this paper, preliminary energy spectra of various elements measured with CAL/SCD during the first 42-day flight are presented.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2008

Proton lifetime bounds from chirally symmetric lattice QCD

We present results for the matrix elements relevant for proton decay in Grand Unified Theories (GUTs). The calculation is performed at a fixed lattice spacing a^{-1}=1.73(3) GeV using 2+1 flavors of domain wall fermions on lattices of size 16^3\times32 and 24^3\times64 with a fifth dimension of length 16. We use the indirect method which relies on an effective field theory description of proton decay, where we need to estimate the low energy constants, α= -0.0112(25) GeV^3 and β= 0.0120(26) GeV^3. We relate these low energy constants to the proton decay matrix elements using leading order chiral perturbation theory. These can then be combined with experimental bounds on the proton lifetime to bound parameters of individual GUTs.

hep-lat↗
arXiv2003

Four-momentum boosted Fermion fields

A formulation of the fermion action is discussed which includes an explicit four momentum boost on the field prior to discretisation. This is used to shift the zero of lattice momentum to lie near one of the on-shell quark poles. The positive pole is selected if we wish to describe a valence quark, and negative pole for a valence anti-quark. Like NRQCD, the typical lattice momenta involved in hadronic correlation functions can be kept small: of order $O(a Λ_{\rm QCD})$, rather than $O(a m_Q)$ even when describing heavy quarks. If we expand around the particle pole, the anti-particle correlator will be poorly described for large $a m_Q$. However, in that case the anti-particle will be far off shell and will only affect unphysical, renormalization factors. The formulation produces the correct continuum limit, and preliminary results have been obtained (for an unimproved action) of both the one-loop self energy and a non-perturbative correlation function.

hep-lat↗
arXiv2002

Status of and performance estimates for QCDOC

QCDOC is a supercomputer designed for high scalability at a low cost per node. We discuss the status of the project and provide performance estimates for large machines obtained from cycle accurate simulation of the QCDOC ASIC.

hep-lat↗
arXiv2001

Where do perturbative and non-perturbative QCD meet?

We computed the static potential and Wilson loops to $O(\alpha^2)$ in perturbation theory for different lattice quark and gluon actions. In general, we find short distance lattice data to be well described by ``boosted perturbation theory''. For Wilson-type fermions at present-day quark masses and lattice spacings agreement within 10% between measured ``$\beta$-shifts'' and those predicted by perturbation theory is found. We comment on prospects for a determination of the real world QCD running coupling.

hep-lat↗
arXiv2000

The unquenched Upsilon spectrum

We describe the bottomonium spectrum obtained on the UKQCD dynamical ensembles and its comparison to quenched results. We include a determination of alpha_s and m_b from the dynmaical results.

hep-lat↗
arXiv2000

Quenched QCD with O(a) improvement: I. The spectrum of light hadrons

We present a comprehensive study of the masses of pseudoscalar and vector mesons, as well as octet and decuplet baryons computed in O(a) improved quenched lattice QCD. Results have been obtained using the non-perturbative definition of the improvement coefficient c_sw, and also its estimate in tadpole improved perturbation theory. We investigate effects of improvement on the incidence of exceptional configurations, mass splittings and the parameter J. By combining the results obtained using non-perturbative and tadpole improvement in a simultaneous continuum extrapolation we can compare our spectral data to experiment. We confirm earlier findings by the CP-PACS Collaboration that the quenched light hadron spectrum agrees with experiment at the 10% level.

hep-lat↗