arXiv subjects

R. Richter

Publications and source records attributed to R. Richter.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Stacked search for time shifted high energy neutrinos from gamma ray bursts with the ANTARES neutrino telescope

A search for high-energy neutrino emission correlated with gamma-ray bursts outside the electromagnetic prompt-emission time window is presented. Using a stacking approach of the time delays between reported gamma-ray burst alerts and spatially coincident muon-neutrino signatures, data from the Antares neutrino telescope recorded between 2007 and 2012 are analysed. One year of public data from the IceCube detector between 2008 and 2009 have been also investigated. The respective timing profiles are scanned for statistically significant accumulations within 40 days of the Gamma Ray Burst, as expected from Lorentz Invariance Violation effects and some astrophysical models. No significant excess over the expected accidental coincidence rate could be found in either of the two data sets. The average strength of the neutrino signal is found to be fainter than one detectable neutrino signal per hundred gamma-ray bursts in the Antares data at 90% confidence level.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2016

Construction and Test of the Precision Drift Chambers for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer

The Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers for the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) consist of 3-4 layers of pressurised drift tubes on either side of a space frame carrying an optical deformation monitoring system. The chambers have to provide a track position resolution of 40 microns with a single-tube resolution of at least 80 microns and a sense wire positioning accu- racy of 20 ?microns (rms). The feasibility was demonstrated with the full-scale prototype of one of the largest MDT chambers with 432 drift tubes of 3.8 m length. For the ATLAS muon spectrometer, 88 chambers of this type have to be built. The first chamber has been completed with a wire positioning accuracy of 14 microns (rms).

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Construction and Test of MDT Chambers for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer

The Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers for the muon spectrometer of the AT- LAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) consist of 3-4 layers of pressurized drift tubes on either side of a space frame carrying an optical monitoring system to correct for deformations. The full-scale prototype of a large MDT chamber has been constructed with methods suitable for large-scale production. X-ray measurements at CERN showed a positioning accuracy of the sense wires in the chamber of better than the required 20 ?microns (rms). The performance of the chamber was studied in a muon beam at CERN. Chamber production for ATLAS now has started.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Performance of the ATLAS Muon Drift-Tube Chambers at High Background Rates and in Magnetic Fields

The ATLAS muon spectrometer uses drift-tube chambers for precision tracking. The performance of these chambers in the presence of magnetic field and high radiation fluxes is studied in this article using test-beam data recorded in the Gamma Irradiation Facility at CERN. The measurements are compared to detailed predictions provided by the Garfield drift-chamber simulation programme.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Performance of the ATLAS Precision Muon Chambers under LHC Operating Conditions

For the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the large hadron collider (LHC), large drift chambers consisting of 6 to 8 layers of pressurized drift tubes are used for precision tracking covering an active area of 5000 m2 in the toroidal field of superconducting air core magnets. The chambers have to provide a spatial resolution of 41 microns with Ar:CO2 (93:7) gas mixture at an absolute pressure of 3 bar and gas gain of 2?104. The environment in which the chambers will be operated is characterized by high neutron and background with counting rates of up to 100 per square cm and second. The resolution and efficiency of a chamber from the serial production for ATLAS has been investigated in a 100 GeV muon beam at photon irradiation rates as expected during LHC operation. A silicon strip detector telescope was used as external reference in the beam. The spatial resolution of a chamber is degraded by 4 ?m at the highest background rate. The detection efficiency of the drift tubes is unchanged under irradiation. A tracking efficiency of 98% at the highest rates has been demonstrated.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Large-Scale Production of Monitored Drift Tube Chambers for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer

Precision drift tube chambers with a sense wire positioning accuracy of better than 20 microns are under construction for the ATLAS muon spectrometer. 70% of the 88 large chambers for the outermost layer of the central part of the spectrometer have been assembled. Measurements during chamber construction of the positions of the sense wires and of the sensors for the optical alignment monitoring system demonstrate that the requirements for the mechanical precision of the chambers are fulfilled.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Resolution and Efficiency of the ATLAS Muon Drift-Tube Chambers at High Background Rates

The resolution and efficiency of a precision drift-tube chamber for the ATLAS muon spectrometer with final read-out electronics was tested at the Gamma Irradiation Facility at CERN in a 100 GeV muon beam and at photon irradiation rates of up to 990 Hz/square cm which corresponds to twice the highest background rate expected in ATLAS. A silicon strip detector telescope was used as external reference in the beam. The pulse-height measurement of the read-out electronics was used to perform time-slewing corrections which lead to an improvement of the average drift-tube resolution from 104 microns to 82 microns without irradiation and from 128 microns to 108 microns at the maximum expected rate. The measured drift-tube efficiency agrees with the expectation from the dead time of the read-out electronics up to the maximum expected rate.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Development of Muon Drift-Tube Detectors for High-Luminosity Upgrades of the Large Hadron Collider

The muon detectors of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have to cope with unprecedentedly high neutron and gamma ray background rates. In the forward regions of the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector, for instance, counting rates of 1.7 kHz/square cm are reached at the LHC design luminosity. For high-luminosity upgrades of the LHC, up to 10 times higher background rates are expected which require replacement of the muon chambers in the critical detector regions. Tests at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility showed that drift-tube detectors with 15 mm diameter aluminum tubes operated with Ar:CO2 (93:7) gas at 3 bar and a maximum drift time of about 200 ns provide efficient and high-resolution muon tracking up to the highest expected rates. For 15 mm tube diameter, space charge effects deteriorating the spatial resolution at high rates are strongly suppressed. The sense wires have to be positioned in the chamber with an accuracy of better than 50 ?micons in order to achieve the desired spatial resolution of a chamber of 50 ?microns up to the highest rates. We report about the design, construction and test of prototype detectors which fulfill these requirements.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Development of Fast High-Resolution Muon Drift-Tube Detectors for High Counting Rates

Pressurized drift-tube chambers are efficient detectors for high-precision tracking over large areas. The Monitored Drift-Tube (MDT) chambers of the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reach a spatial resolution of 35 micons and almost 100% tracking efficiency with 6 layers of 30 mm diameter drift tubes operated with Ar:CO2 (93:7) gas mixture at 3 bar and a gas gain of 20000. The ATLAS MDT chambers are designed to cope with background counting rates due to neutrons and gamma-rays of up to about 300 kHz per tube which will be exceeded for LHC luminosities larger than the design value of 10-34 per square cm and second. Decreasing the drift-tube diameter to 15 mm while keeping the other parameters, including the gas gain, unchanged reduces the maximum drift time from about 700 ns to 200 ns and the drift-tube occupancy by a factor of 7. New drift-tube chambers for the endcap regions of the ATLAS muon spectrometer have been designed. A prototype chamber consisting of 12 times 8 layers of 15 mm diameter drift tubes of 1 m length has been constructed with a sense wire positioning accuracy of 20 microns. The 15 mm diameter drift-tubes have been tested with cosmic rays in the Gamma Irradiation Facility at CERN at counting rates of up to 1.85 MHz.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

Fano Resonances observed in Helium Nanodroplets

Doubly-excited Rydberg states of helium (He) nanodroplets have been studied using synchrotron radiation. We observed Fano resonances related to the atomic N = 2,0 series as a function of droplet size. Although similar qualitatively to their atomic counterparts, the resonance lines are broader and exhibit a shift in energy which increases for the higher excited states. Furthermore, additional resonances are observed which are not seen in atomic systems. We discuss these features in terms of delocalized atomic states perturbed by the surrounding He atoms and compare to singly excited droplets.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Enhanced ionization of embedded clusters by Electron Transfer Mediated Decay in helium nanodroplets

Here, we report the observation of electron transfer mediated decay (ETMD) involving Mg clusters embedded in helium nanodroplets which is initiated by the ionization of helium followed by removal of two electrons from the Mg clusters of which one is transferred to the He environment neutralizing it while the other electron is emitted into the continuum. The process is shown to be the dominant ionization mechanism for embedded clusters for photon energies above the ionization potential of He. The photoelectron spectrum reveals a low energy ETMD peak. For Mg clusters larger than 5 atoms we observe stable doubly-ionized clusters. We argue that ETMD provides a new pathway to the formation of doubly-ionized cold species.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Performance of a First-Level Muon Trigger with High Momentum Resolution Based on the ATLAS MDT Chambers for HL-LHC

Highly selective first-level triggers are essential to exploit the full physics potential of the ATLAS experiment at High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). The concept for a new muon trigger stage using the precision monitored drift tube (MDT) chambers to significantly improve the selectivity of the first-level muon trigger is presented. It is based on fast track reconstruction in all three layers of the existing MDT chambers, made possible by an extension of the first-level trigger latency to six microseconds and a new MDT read-out electronics required for the higher overall trigger rates at the HL-LHC. Data from $pp$-collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 8\,\mathrm{TeV}$ is used to study the minimal muon transverse momentum resolution that can be obtained using the MDT precision chambers, and to estimate the resolution and efficiency of the MDT-based trigger. A resolution of better than $4.1\%$ is found in all sectors under study. With this resolution, a first-level trigger with a threshold of $18\,\mathrm{GeV}$ becomes fully efficient for muons with a transverse momentum above $24\,\mathrm{GeV}$ in the barrel, and above $20\,\mathrm{GeV}$ in the end-cap region.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

First combined search for neutrino point-sources in the Southern Hemisphere with the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes

We present the results of searches for point-like sources of neutrinos based on the first combined analysis of data from both the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes. The combination of both detectors which differ in size and location forms a window in the Southern sky where the sensitivity to point sources improves by up to a factor of two compared to individual analyses. Using data recorded by ANTARES from 2007 to 2012, and by IceCube from 2008 to 2011, we search for sources of neutrino emission both across the Southern sky and from a pre-selected list of candidate objects. No significant excess over background has been found in these searches, and flux upper limits for the candidate sources are presented for $E^{-2.5}$ and $E^{-2}$ power-law spectra with different energy cut-offs.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2015

Optical and X-ray early follow-up of ANTARES neutrino alerts

High-energy neutrinos could be produced in the interaction of charged cosmic rays with matter or radiation surrounding astrophysical sources. Even with the recent detection of extraterrestrial high-energy neutrinos by the IceCube experiment, no astrophysical neutrino source has yet been discovered. Transient sources, such as gamma-ray bursts, core-collapse supernovae, or active galactic nuclei are promising candidates. Multi-messenger programs offer a unique opportunity to detect these transient sources. By combining the information provided by the ANTARES neutrino telescope with information coming from other observatories, the probability of detecting a source is enhanced, allowing the possibility of identifying a neutrino progenitor from a single detected event. A method based on optical and X-ray follow-ups of high-energy neutrino alerts has been developed within the ANTARES collaboration. This program, denoted as TAToO, triggers a network of robotic optical telescopes (TAROT and ROTSE) and the Swift-XRT with a delay of only a few seconds after a neutrino detection, and is therefore well-suited to search for fast transient sources. To identify an optical or X-ray counterpart to a neutrino signal, the images provided by the follow-up observations are analysed with dedicated pipelines. A total of 42 alerts with optical and 7 alerts with X-ray images taken with a maximum delay of 24 hours after the neutrino trigger have been analysed. No optical or X-ray counterparts associated to the neutrino triggers have been found, and upper limits on transient source magnitudes have been derived. The probability to reject the gamma-ray burst origin hypothesis has been computed for each alert.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Time calibration with atmospheric muon tracks in the ANTARES neutrino telescope

The ANTARES experiment consists of an array of photomultipliers distributed along 12 lines and located deep underwater in the Mediterranean Sea. It searches for astrophysical neutrinos collecting the Cherenkov light induced by the charged particles, mainly muons, produced in neutrino interactions around the detector. Since at energies of $\sim$10 TeV the muon and the incident neutrino are almost collinear, it is possible to use the ANTARES detector as a neutrino telescope and identify a source of neutrinos in the sky starting from a precise reconstruction of the muon trajectory. To get this result, the arrival times of the Cherenkov photons must be accurately measured. A to perform time calibrations with the precision required to have optimal performances of the instrument is described. The reconstructed tracks of the atmospheric muons in the ANTARES detector are used to determine the relative time offsets between photomultipliers. Currently, this method is used to obtain the time calibration constants for photomultipliers on different lines at a precision level of 0.5 ns. It has also been validated for calibrating photomultipliers on the same line, using a system of LEDs and laser light devices.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

Search for muon-neutrino emission from GeV and TeV gamma-ray flaring blazars using five years of data of the ANTARES telescope

The ANTARES telescope is well-suited for detecting astrophysical transient neutrino sources as it can observe a full hemisphere of the sky at all times with a high duty cycle. The background due to atmospheric particles can be drastically reduced, and the point-source sensitivity improved, by selecting a narrow time window around possible neutrino production periods. Blazars, being radio-loud active galactic nuclei with their jets pointing almost directly towards the observer, are particularly attractive potential neutrino point sources, since they are among the most likely sources of the very high-energy cosmic rays. Neutrinos and gamma rays may be produced in hadronic interactions with the surrounding medium. Moreover, blazars generally show high time variability in their light curves at different wavelengths and on various time scales. This paper presents a time-dependent analysis applied to a selection of flaring gamma-ray blazars observed by the FERMI/LAT experiment and by TeV Cherenkov telescopes using five years of ANTARES data taken from 2008 to 2012. The results are compatible with fluctuations of the background. Upper limits on the neutrino fluence have been produced and compared to the measured gamma-ray spectral energy distribution.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Search of Dark Matter Annihilation in the Galactic Centre using the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope

A search for high-energy neutrinos coming from the direction of the Galactic Centre is performed using the data recorded by the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2012. The event selection criteria are chosen to maximise the sensitivity to possible signals produced by the self-annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles accumulated around the centre of the Milky Way with respect to the atmospheric background. After data unblinding, the number of neutrinos observed in the line of sight of the Galactic Centre is found to be compatible with background expectations. The 90% C.L. upper limits in terms of the neutrino+anti-neutrino flux, $\rm Φ_{ν_μ+\barν_μ}$, and the velocity averaged annihilation cross-section, $\rm <σ_{A}v>$, are derived for the WIMP self-annihilation channels into $\rm b\bar{b},W^{+}W^{-},τ^{+}τ^{-},μ^{+}μ^{-},ν\barν$. The ANTARES limits for $\rm <σ_{A}v>$ are shown to be the most stringent for a neutrino telescope over the WIMP masses $\rm 25\,GeV < M_{WIMP} < 10\,TeV$.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

ANTARES Constrains a Blazar Origin of Two IceCube PeV Neutrino Events

The source(s) of the neutrino excess reported by the IceCube Collaboration is unknown. The TANAMI Collaboration recently reported on the multiwavelength emission of six bright, variable blazars which are positionally coincident with two of the most energetic IceCube events. Objects like these are prime candidates to be the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays, and thus of associated neutrino emission. We present an analysis of neutrino emission from the six blazars using observations with the ANTARES neutrino telescope.The standard methods of the ANTARES candidate list search are applied to six years of data to search for an excess of muons --- and hence their neutrino progenitors --- from the directions of the six blazars described by the TANAMI Collaboration, and which are possibly associated with two IceCube events. Monte Carlo simulations of the detector response to both signal and background particle fluxes are used to estimate the sensitivity of this analysis for different possible source neutrino spectra. A maximum-likelihood approach, using the reconstructed energies and arrival directions of through-going muons, is used to identify events with properties consistent with a blazar origin.Both blazars predicted to be the most neutrino-bright in the TANAMI sample (1653$-$329 and 1714$-$336) have a signal flux fitted by the likelihood analysis corresponding to approximately one event. This observation is consistent with the blazar-origin hypothesis of the IceCube event IC14 for a broad range of blazar spectra, although an atmospheric origin cannot be excluded. No ANTARES events are observed from any of the other four blazars, including the three associated with IceCube event IC20. This excludes at a 90\% confidence level the possibility that this event was produced by these blazars unless the neutrino spectrum is flatter than $-2.4$.

astro-ph.HE↗