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U. Straumann

Publications and source records attributed to U. Straumann.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2020

Technical design of the phase I Mu3e experiment

The Mu3e experiment aims to find or exclude the lepton flavour violating decay $\mu \rightarrow eee$ at branching fractions above $10^{-16}$. A first phase of the experiment using an existing beamline at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is designed to reach a single event sensitivity of $2\cdot 10^{-15}$. We present an overview of all aspects of the technical design and expected performance of the phase~I Mu3e detector. The high rate of up to $10^{8}$ muon decays per second and the low momenta of the decay electrons and positrons pose a unique set of challenges, which we tackle using an ultra thin tracking detector based on high-voltage monolithic active pixel sensors combined with scintillating fibres and tiles for precise timing measurements.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2019

Trigger performance verification of the FlashCam prototype camera

FlashCam is a camera proposed for the medium-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). We compare camera trigger rates obtained from measurements with the camera prototype in the laboratory and Monte-Carlo simulations, when scanning the parameter space of the fully-digital trigger logic and the intensity of a continuous light source mimicking the night sky background (NSB) during on-site operation. The comparisons of the measured data results to the Monte-Carlo simulations are used to verify the FlashCam trigger logic and the expected trigger performance.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2016

Performance Verification of the FlashCam Prototype Camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a future gamma-ray observatory that is planned to significantly improve upon the sensitivity and precision of the current generation of Cherenkov telescopes. The observatory will consist of several dozens of telescopes with different sizes and equipped with different types of cameras. Of these, the FlashCam camera system is the first to implement a fully digital signal processing chain which allows for a traceable, configurable trigger scheme and flexible signal reconstruction. As of autumn 2016, a prototype FlashCam camera for the medium-sized telescopes of CTA nears completion. First results of the ongoing system tests demonstrate that the signal chain and the readout system surpass CTA requirements. The stability of the system is shown using long-term temperature cycling.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2015

FlashCam: a fully-digital camera for the medium-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The FlashCam group is currently preparing photomultiplier-tube based cameras proposed for the medium-sized telescopes (MST) of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The cameras are designed around the FlashCam readout concept which is the first fully-digital readout system for Cherenkov cameras, based on commercial FADCs and FPGAs as key components for the front-end electronics modules and a high performance camera server as back-end. This contribution describes the progress of the full-scale FlashCam camera prototype currently under construction, as well as performance results also obtained with earlier demonstrator setups. Plans towards the production and implementation of FlashCams on site are also briefly presented.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2015

The Optical System for the Large Size Telescope of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Large Size Telescope (LST) of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is designed to achieve a threshold energy of 20 GeV. The LST optics is composed of one parabolic primary mirror 23 m in diameter and 28 m focal length. The reflector dish is segmented in 198 hexagonal, 1.51 m flat to flat mirrors. The total effective reflective area, taking into account the shadow of the mechanical structure, is about 368 m$^2$. The mirrors have a sandwich structure consisting of a glass sheet of 2.7 mm thickness, aluminum honeycomb of 60 mm thickness, and another glass sheet on the rear, and have a total weight about 47 kg. The mirror surface is produced using a sputtering deposition technique to apply a 5-layer coating, and the mirrors reach a reflectivity of $\sim$94% at peak. The mirror facets are actively aligned during operations by an active mirror control system, using actuators, CMOS cameras and a reference laser. Each mirror facet carries a CMOS camera, which measures the position of the light spot of the optical axis reference laser on the target of the telescope camera. The two actuators and the universal joint of each mirror facet are respectively fixed to three neighboring joints of the dish space frame, via specially designed interface plate.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2014

Reflections on a Measurement of the Gravitational Constant Using a Beam Balance and 13 Tons of Mercury

In 2006, a final result of a measurement of the gravitational constant $G$ performed by researchers at the University of Z\"urich was published. A value of $G=6.674\,252(122)\times 10^{-11}\,\mbox{m}^3\,\mbox{kg}^{-1}\,\mbox{s}^{-2}$ was obtained after an experimental effort that lasted over one decade. Here, we briefly summarize the measurement and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2013

Probing the cosmic-ray content of galaxy clusters by stacking Fermi-LAT count maps

Observations in radio have shown that galaxy clusters are giant reservoirs of cosmic rays (CR). Although a gamma- ray signal from the cluster volume is expected to arise through interactions of CR protons with the ambient plasma, a confirming observation is still missing. We search for a cumulative gamma-ray emission in direction of galaxy clusters by analysing a collection of stacked Fermi-LAT count maps. Additionally, we investigate possible systematic differences in the emission between cool-core and non-cool core cluster populations. Making use of a sample of 53 clusters selected from the HIFLUGCS catalog, we do not detect a significant signal from the stacked sample. The upper limit on the average flux per cluster derived for the total stacked sample is at the level of a few 1e-11 ph cm-2 s-1 at 95% confidence level in the 1-300 GeV band, assuming power-law spectra with photon indices 2.0, 2.4, 2.8 and 3.2. Separate stacking of the cool core and non-cool core clusters in the sample lead to similar values of around 5e-11 ph cm-2 s-1 and 2e-11 ph cm-2 s-1, respectively. Under the assumption that decaying pi0, produced in collisions between CRs and the ambient thermal gas, are responsible for the gamma-ray emission, we set upper limits on the average CR content in galaxy clusters. For the entire cluster population, our upper limit on the gamma-ray flux translates into an upper limit on the average CR-to-thermal energy ratio of 4.6% for a photon index of 2.4, although it is possible for individual systems to exceed this limit. Our 95% upper limits are at the level expected from numerical simulations, which likely suggests that the injection of CR at cosmological shocks is less efficient than previously assumed.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2013

FlashCam: A fully digital camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

FlashCam is a Cherenkov camera development project centered around a fully digital trigger and readout scheme with smart, digital signal processing, and a "horizontal" architecture for the electromechanical implementation. The fully digital approach, based on commercial FADCs and FPGAs as key components, provides the option to easily implement different types of triggers as well as digitization and readout scenarios using identical hardware, by simply changing the firmware on the FPGAs. At the same time, a large dynamic range and high resolution of low-amplitude signals in a single readout channel per pixel is achieved using compression of high amplitude signals in the preamplifier and signal processing in the FPGA. The readout of the front-end modules into a camera server is Ethernet-based using standard Ethernet switches. In its current implementation, data transfer and backend processing rates of ~3.8 GBytes/sec have been achieved. Together with the dead-time-free front end event buffering on the FPGAs, this permits the cameras to operate at trigger rates of up to several tens of kHz. In the horizontal architecture of FlashCam, the photon detector plane (PDP), consisting of photon detectors, preamplifiers, high voltage-, control-, and monitoring systems, is a self-contained unit, which is interfaced through analogue signal transmission to the digital readout system. The horizontal integration of FlashCam is expected not only to be more cost efficient, it also allows PDPs with different types of photon detectors to be adapted to the FlashCam readout system. This paper describes the FlashCam concept, its verification process, and its implementation for a 12 m class CTA telescope with PMT-based PDP.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2013

Research Proposal for an Experiment to Search for the Decay μ -> eee

We propose an experiment (Mu3e) to search for the lepton flavour violating decay mu+ -> e+e-e+. We aim for an ultimate sensitivity of one in 10^16 mu-decays, four orders of magnitude better than previous searches. This sensitivity is made possible by exploiting modern silicon pixel detectors providing high spatial resolution and hodoscopes using scintillating fibres and tiles providing precise timing information at high particle rates.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2012

FlashCam: A fully digital camera for CTA telescopes

The future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will consist of several tens of telescopes of different mirror sizes. CTA will provide next generation sensitivity to very high energy photons from few tens of GeV to >100 TeV. Several focal plane instrumentation options are currently being evaluated inside the CTA consortium. In this paper, the current status of the FlashCam prototyping project is described. FlashCam is based on a fully digital camera readout concept and features a clean separation between photon detector plane and signal digitization/triggering electronics.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2012

New studies of allowed pion and muon decays

Building on the rare pion and muon decay results of the PIBETA experiment, the PEN collaboration has undertaken a precise measurement of B_{\pi e2} = R^\pi_{e/\mu}, the \pi^+ -> e^+\nu(\gamma) decay branching ratio, at the Paul Scherrer Institute, to reduce the present 40\times experimental precision lag behind theory to ~ 6-7\times. Because of large helicity suppression, R^\pi_{e/\mu} is uniquely sensitive to contributions from non-(V-A) physics, making this decay a particularly suitable subject of study. Even at current precision, the experimental value of B_{\pi e2} provides the most accurate test of lepton universality available. During runs in 2008-10, PEN has accumulated over 2\times 10^7 \pi_{e2} events; a comprehensive maximum-likelihood analysis is currently under way. The new data will also lead to improved precision of the earlier PIBETA results on radiative \pi and \mu decays.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2012

A stacking method to study the gamma-ray emission of source samples based on the co-adding of Fermi LAT count maps

We present a stacking method that makes use of co-added maps of gamma-ray counts produced from data taken with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. Sources with low integrated gamma-ray fluxes that are not detected individually may become detectable when their corresponding count maps are added. The combined data set is analyzed with a maximum likelihood method taking into account the contribution from point-like and diffuse background sources. For both simulated and real data, detection significance and integrated gamma-ray flux are investigated for different numbers of stacked sources using the public Fermi Science Tools for analysis and data preparation. The co-adding is done such that potential source signals add constructively, in contrast to the signals from background sources, which allows the stacked data to be described with simply structured models. We show, for different scenarios, that the stacking method can be used to increase the cumulative significance of a sample of sources and to characterize the corresponding gamma-ray emission. The method can, for instance, help to search for gamma-ray emission from galaxy clusters.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2009

PEN: a sensitive search for non-(V-A) weak processes

A new measurement of $B_{πe2}$, the $π^+ \to e^+ν(γ)$ decay branching ratio, is currently under way at the Paul Scherrer Institute. The present experimental result on $B_{πe2}$ constitutes the most accurate test of lepton universality available. The accuracy, however, still lags behind the theoretical precision by over an order of magnitude. Thanks to the large helicity suppression of $π_{e2}$ decay, the branching ratio is susceptible to significant contributions from new physics, making this decay a particularly suitable subject of study.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2009

PEN experiment: a precise measurement of the pi+ -> e+ nu decay branching fraction

A new measurement of $B_{πe2}$, the $π^+ \to e^+ν(γ)$ decay branching ratio, is currently under way at the Paul Scherrer Institute. The present experimental result on $B_{πe2}$ constitutes the most accurate test of lepton universality available. The accuracy, however, still lags behind the theoretical precision by over an order of magnitude. Because of the large helicity suppression of the $π_{e2}$ decay, its branching ratio is susceptible to significant contributions from new physics, making this decay a particularly suitable subject of study.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2009

New Precise Measurement of the Pion Weak Form Factors in the Pi+ -> e+ nu gamma Decay

We have measured the $π^+\to {\rm e}^+νγ$ branching ratio over a wide region of phase space, based on a total of 65,460 events acquired using the PIBETA detector. Minimum-$χ^2$ fits to the measured $(E_{e^+},E_γ)$ energy distributions result in the weak form factor value of $F_A=0.0119(1)$ with a fixed value of $F_V=0.0259$. An unconstrained fit yields $F_V=0.0258(17)$ and $F_A=0.0117(17)$. In addition, we have measured $a=0.10(6)$ for the dependence of $F_V$ on $q^2$, the ${\rm e}^{+}ν$ pair invariant mass squared, parametrized as $F_V(q^2)=F_V(0)(1+a\cdot q^2)$. The branching ratio for the kinematic region $E_γ> 10 $MeV and $θ_{{\rm e^+}γ} > 40^\circ $ is measured to be $B^{\rm exp}=73.86(54) \times 10^{-8}$. Earlier deviations we reported in the high-$E_γ$/low-$E_{{\rm e}^+}$ kinematic region are resolved, and we find full compatibility with CVC and standard $V$$-$$A$ calculations without a tensor term. We also derive new values for the pion polarizability, $α_E = \rm 2.78(10) \times 10^{-4} fm^3$, and neutral pion lifetime, $τ_{π0} = (8.5 \pm 1.1) \times 10^{-17} $s.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2008

Precise Measurement of pi+ -> e+ nu Branching Ratio

The PEN Collaboration is conducting a new measurement of the pi+ -> e+ nu branching ratio at the Paul Scherrer Institute, with the goal uncertainty of delta B/B(pie2)=5E-4 or lower. At present, the combined accuracy of all published pie2 decay measurements lags behind the theoretical calculation by a factor of 40. In this contribution we report on the PEN detector configuration and its performance during two development runs done in 2007 and 2008.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2006

A Measurement of Newton's Gravitational Constant

A precision measurement of the gravitational constant $G$ has been made using a beam balance. Special attention has been given to determining the calibration, the effect of a possible nonlinearity of the balance and the zero-point variation of the balance. The equipment, the measurements and the analysis are described in detail. The value obtained for G is 6.674252(109)(54) 10^{-11} m3 kg-1 s-2. The relative statistical and systematic uncertainties of this result are 16.3 10^{-6} and 8.1 10^{-6}, respectively.

gr-qc↗