arXiv subjects

S. Hirano

Publications and source records attributed to S. Hirano.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Removal of Radioactive Noble Gas Radon from Air by Ag-Zeolite

This paper investigates the removal of radon from purified and ambient airs by Ag-zeolite. Ag-zeolite is known to have very high performance for airborne radon removal. The dependence of zeolite type and silver content on the performance of radon removal was evaluated. The performance of radon removal by single pass and radon emanation were also evaluated. In addition, the adsorption performance due to zeolite solidification and the change in adsorption performance due to moisture in the gas were evaluated in order to investigate properties that should be considered for future practical use. These properties will be adaptable to the development of air purification systems for the large volume ultra-low radioactivity experiments.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2024

Study of radon removal performance of silver-ion exchanged zeolite from air for underground experiments

Radon is a common background source for underground astroparticle physics experiments and its removal is essential. In this study, we fabricated several prototype silver-ion exchanged zeolites, measured their radon adsorption properties, and evaluated their applicability for radon removal in underground experiments. As a result, we succeeded in producing a prototype silver-ion exchanged zeolite that showed better radon adsorption properties than preceding studies.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2014

Search for bosonic superweakly interacting massive dark matter particles with the XMASS-I detector

Bosonic superweakly interacting massive particles (super-WIMPs) are a candidate for warm dark matter. With the absorption of such a boson by a xenon atom these dark matter candidates would deposit an energy equivalent to their rest mass in the detector. This is the first direct detection experiment exploring the vector super-WIMPs in the mass range between 40 and 120 keV. Using 165.9 days of data no significant excess above background was observed in the fiducial mass of 41 kg. The present limit for the vector super-WIMPs excludes the possibility that such particles constitute all of dark matter. The absence of a signal also provides the most stringent direct constraint on the coupling constant of pseudoscalar super-WIMPs to electrons. The unprecedented sensitivity was achieved exploiting the low background at a level $10^{-4}$ kg$^{-1}$keV$_{ee}^{-1}$day$^{-1}$ in the detector.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Search for inelastic WIMP nucleus scattering on $^{129}$Xe in data from the XMASS-I experiment

A search for inelastic scattering of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) on the isotope $^{129}$Xe was done in data taken with the single phase liquid xenon detector XMASS at the Kamioka Observatory. Using a restricted volume containing 41 kg of LXe at the very center of our detector we observed no significant excess of events in 165.9 days of data. Our background reduction allowed us to derive our limits without explicitly subtracting the remaining events which are compatible with background expectations and derive for e.g. a 50 GeV WIMP an upper limit for its inelastic cross section on $^{129}$Xe nuclei of 3.2 pb at the 90% confidence level.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

Search for solar axions in XMASS, a large liquid-xenon detector

XMASS, a low-background, large liquid-xenon detector, was used to search for solar axions that would be produced by bremsstrahlung and Compton effects in the Sun. With an exposure of 5.6ton days of liquid xenon, the model-independent limit on the coupling for mass $\ll$ 1keV is $|g_{aee}|< 5.4\times 10^{-11}$ (90% C.L.), which is a factor of two stronger than the existing experimental limit. The bounds on the axion masses for the DFSZ and KSVZ axion models are 1.9 and 250eV, respectively. In the mass range of 10-40keV, this study produced the most stringent limit, which is better than that previously derived from astrophysical arguments regarding the Sun to date.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

Light WIMP search in XMASS

A search for light dark matter using low-threshold data from the single phase liquid xenon scintillation detector XMASS, has been conducted. Using the entire 835 kg inner volume as target, the analysis threshold can be lowered to 0.3 keVee (electron-equivalent) to search for light dark matter. With low-threshold data corresponding to a 5591.4 kg$\cdot$day exposure of the detector and without discriminating between nuclear-recoil and electronic events, XMASS excludes part of the parameter space favored by other experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

XMASS detector

The XMASS project aims to detect dark matter, pp and $^{7}$Be solar neutrinos, and neutrinoless double beta decay using ultra pure liquid xenon. The first phase of the XMASS experiment searches for dark matter. In this paper, we describe the XMASS detector in detail, including its configuration, data acquisition equipment and calibration system.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2011

Scintillation-only Based Pulse Shape Discrimination for Nuclear and Electron Recoils in Liquid Xenon

In a dedicated test setup at the Kamioka Observatory we studied pulse shape discrimination (PSD) in liquid xenon (LXe) for dark matter searches. PSD in LXe was based on the observation that scintillation light from electron events was emitted over a longer period of time than that of nuclear recoil events, and our method used a simple ratio of early to total scintillation light emission in a single scintillation event. Requiring an efficiency of 50% for nuclear recoil retention we reduced the electron background to 7.7\pm1.1(stat)\pm1.2 0.6(sys)\times10-2 at energies between 4.8 and 7.2 keVee and to 7.7\pm2.8(stat)\pm2.5 2.8(sys)\times10-3 at energies between 9.6 and 12 keVee for a scintillation light yield of 20.9 p.e./keV. Further study was done by masking some of that light to reduce this yield to 4.6 p.e./keV, the same method results in an electron event reduction of 2.4\pm0.2(stat)\pm0.3 0.2(sys)\times10-1 for the lower of the energy regions above. We also observe that in contrast to nuclear recoils the fluctuations in our early to total ratio for electron events are larger than expected from statistical fluctuations.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv1999

Tachyon Condensation and Graviton Production in Matrix Theory

We study a membrane -- anti-membrane system in Matrix theory. It in fact exhibits the tachyon instability. By suitably representing this configuration, we obtain a (2+1)-dimensional U(2) gauge theory with a 't Hooft's twisted boundary condition. We identify the tachyon field with a certain off-diagonal element of the gauge fields in this model. Taking into account the boundary conditions carefully, we can find vortex solutions which saturate the Bogomol'nyi-type bound and manifest the tachyon condensation. We show that they can be interpreted as gravitons in Matrix theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv1993

Exact Operator Quantization of a Model of Two-Dimensional Dilaton Gravity

Exact operator quantization is perfomed of a model of two-dimensional dilaton gravity in Lorentzian spacetime, classically equivalent to the one proposed by Callan, Giddings, Harvey and Strominger, in the special case with 24 massless matter scalars. This is accomplished by developing a non-linear and non-local quantum canonical transformation of basic interacting fields into a set of free fields, rigorously taking into account the spatially closed boundary condition. The quantized model enjoys conformal invariance and the entire set of physical states and operators are obtained in the BRST formalism. In addition, a rather detailed discussion of the nature of the basic issues for exact treatment of models of quantum gravity is provided.

hep-th↗