SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

Werner Tornow

Publications and source records attributed to Werner Tornow.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Combined Pre-Supernova Alert System with Kamland and Super-Kamiokande

Preceding a core-collapse supernova, various processes produce an increasing amount of neutrinos of all flavors characterized by mounting energies from the interior of massive stars. Among them, the electron antineutrinos are potentially detectable by terrestrial neutrino experiments such as KamLAND and Super-Kamiokande via inverse beta decay interactions. Once these pre-supernova neutrinos are observed, an early warning of the upcoming core-collapse supernova can be provided. In light of this, KamLAND and Super-Kamiokande, both located in the Kamioka mine in Japan, have been monitoring pre-supernova neutrinos since 2015 and 2021, respectively. Recently, we performed a joint study between KamLAND and Super-Kamiokande on pre-supernova neutrino detection. A pre-supernova alert system combining the KamLAND detector and the Super-Kamiokande detector was developed and put into operation, which can provide a supernova alert to the astrophysics community. Fully leveraging the complementary properties of these two detectors, the combined alert is expected to resolve a pre-supernova neutrino signal from a 15 M$_{\odot}$ star within 510 pc of the Earth, at a significance level corresponding to a false alarm rate of no more than 1 per century. For a Betelgeuse-like model with optimistic parameters, it can provide early warnings up to 12 hours in advance.

hep-ex

Observation of low-lying isomeric states in $^{136}$Cs: a new avenue for dark matter and solar neutrino detection in xenon detectors

We report on new measurements establishing the existence of low-lying isomeric states in $^{136}$Cs using $γ$ rays produced in $^{136}$Xe(p,n)$^{136}$Cs reactions. Two states with $\mathcal{O}(100)$~ns lifetimes are placed in the decay sequence of the $^{136}$Cs levels that are populated in charged-current interactions of solar neutrinos and fermionic dark matter with $^{136}$Xe. Xenon-based experiments can therefore exploit a delayed-coincidence tag of these interactions, greatly suppressing backgrounds to enable spectroscopic studies of solar neutrinos and dark matter.

nucl-ex

Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay

After the pioneering work of the Heidelberg-Moscow (HDM) and International Germanium Experiment (IGEX) groups, the second round of neutrinoless double-$β$ decay searches currently underway has or will improve the life-time limits of double-$β$ decay candidates by a factor of two to three, reaching in the near future the $T_{1/2} = 3 \times 10^{25}$ yr level. This talk will focus on the large-scale experiments GERDA, EXO-200, and KamLAND-Zen, which have reported already lower half-life time limits in excess of $10^{25}$ yr. Special emphasis is given to KamLAND-Zen, which is expected to approach the inverted hierarchy regime before future 1-ton experiments probe completely this life-time or effective neutrino-mass regime, which starts at $\approx 2 \times 10^{26}$ yr or $\approx 50$ meV.

nucl-ex

Two-neutrino double-beta decay of $^{150}$Nd to excited final states in $^{150}$Sm

Double-beta decay is a rare nuclear process in which two neutrons in the nucleus are converted to two protons with the emission of two electrons and two electron anti-neutrinos. We measured the half life of the two-neutrino double-beta decay of $^{150}$Nd to excited final states of $^{150}$Sm by detecting the de-excitation gamma rays of the daughter nucleus. This study yields the first detection of the coincidence gamma rays from the 0$^+_1$ excited state of $^{150}$Sm. These gamma rays have energies of 333.97 keV and 406.52 keV, and are emitted in coincidence through a 0$^+_1\rightarrow$2$^+_1\rightarrow$0$^+_{gs}$ transition. The enriched Nd$_2$O$_3$ sample consisted of 40.13 g $^{150}$Nd and was observed for 642.8 days at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility, producing 21.6 net events in the region of interest. This count rate gives a half life of $T_{1/2}=(1.07^{+0.45}_{-0.25}(stat)\pm0.07(syst.))\times 10^{20}$ years. The effective nuclear matrix element was found to be 0.0465$^{+0.0098}_{-0.0054}$. Finally, lower limits were obtained for decays to higher excited final states. Our half-life measurement agrees within uncertainties with another recent measurement in which no coincidence was employed. Our nuclear matrix element calculation may have an impact on a recent neutrinoless double-beta decay nuclear matrix element calculation which implies the decay to the first excited state in $^{150}$Sm is favored over that to the ground state.

nucl-ex

The high-efficiency γ-ray spectroscopy setup γ3 at HIγS

The existing Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence (NRF) setup at the HIγS facility at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory at Duke University has been extended in order to perform γ-γ coincidence experiments. The new setup combines large volume LaBr3:Ce detectors and high resolution HPGe detectors in a very close geometry to offer high efficiency, high energy resolution as well as high count rate capabilities at the same time. The combination of a highly efficient γ-ray spectroscopy setup with the mono-energetic high-intensity photon beam of HIγS provides a worldwide unique experimental facility to investigate the γ-decay pattern of dipole excitations in atomic nuclei. The performance of the new setup has been assessed by studying the nucleus \sulfur at 8.125 MeV beam energy. The γ-decay branching ratio from the $1^+$ level at 8125.4 keV to the first excited $2^+$ state was determined to 15.7(3)%.

physics.ins-det