121396997
Measurement of CNGS muon neutrino speed with Borexino
Abstract We have measured the speed of muon neutrinos with the Borexino detector using short-bunch CNGS beams. The final result for the difference in time-of-flight between an 〈 E 〉 = 17 GeV muon neutrino and a particle moving at the speed of light in vacuum is δ t = 0.8 ± 0.7 stat ± 2.9 sys ns , well consistent with zero.
119181847
Positronium signature in organic liquid scintillators for neutrino experiments
Electron antineutrinos are commonly detected in liquid scintillator experiments via inverse {beta} decay by looking at the coincidence between the reaction products: neutrons and positrons. Prior to positron annihilation, an electron-positron pair may form an orthopositronium (o-Ps) state, with a mean lifetime of a few nanoseconds. Even if the o-Ps decay is speeded up by spin-flip or pick-off effects, it may introduce distortions in the photon emission time distribution, crucial for position reconstruction and pulse shape discrimination algorithms in antineutrino experiments. Reversing the problem, the o-Ps-induced time distortion represents a new signature for tagging antineutrinos in liquid scintillator. In this article, we report the results of measurements of the o-Ps formation probability and lifetime for the most used solvents for organic liquid scintillators in neutrino physics (pseudocumene, linear alkyl benzene, phenylxylylethane, and dodecane). We characterize also a mixture of pseudocumene +1.5 g/l of 2,5-diphenyloxazole, a fluor acting as wavelength shifter. In the second part of the article, we demonstrate that the o-Ps-induced distortion of the scintillation photon emission time distributions represent an optimal signature for tagging positrons on an event by event basis, potentially enhancing the antineutrino detection.
11472516
The classification of flaring states of blazars
Aims. The time evolution of the electromagnetic emission from blazars, in particular high-frequency peaked sources (HBLs), displays irregular activity that has not yet been understood. In this work we report a methodology capable of characterizing the time behavior of these variable objects. Methods. The maximum likelihood blocks (MLBs) is a model-independent estimator that subdivides the light curve into time blocks, whose length and amplitude are compatible with states of constant emission rate of the observed source. The MLBs yield the statistical significance in the rate variations and strongly suppresses the noise fluctuations in the light curves. We applied the MLBs for the first time on the long term X-ray light curves (RXTE/ASM) of Mkn 421, Mkn 501, 1ES 1959+650, and 1ES 2155-304, more than 10 years of observational data (1996-2007). Using the MLBs interpretation of RXTE/ASM data, the integrated time flux distribution is determined for each single source considered. We identify in these distributions the characteristic level, as well as the flaring states of the blazars. Results. All the distributions show a significant component at negative flux values, most probably caused by an uncertainty in the background subtraction and by intrinsic fluctuations of RXTE/ASM. This effect concerns in particular short time observations. To quantify the probability that the intrinsic fluctuations give rise to a false identification of a flare, we study a population of very faint sources and their integrated time-flux distribution. We determine duty cycle or fraction of time a source spent in the flaring state of the source Mkn 421, Mkn 501, 1ES 1959+650 and 1ES 2155-304. Moreover, we study the random coincidences between flares and generic sporadic events such as high-energy neutrinos or flares in other wavelengths.
55691252
Solar neutrino with Borexino: Results and perspectives
Borexino is a unique detector able to perform measurement of solar neutrinos fluxes in the energy region around 1 MeV or below due to its low level of radioactive background. It was constructed at the LNGS underground laboratory with a goal of solar 7Be neutrino flux measurement with 5% precision. The goal has been successfully achieved marking the end of the first stage of the experiment. A number of other important measurements of solar neutrino fluxes have been performed during the first stage. Recently the collaboration conducted successful liquid scintillator repurification campaign aiming to reduce main contaminants in the sub-MeV energy range. With the new levels of radiopurity Borexino can improve existing and challenge a number of new measurements including: improvement of the results on the Solar and terrestrial neutrino fluxes measurements; measurement of pp and CNO solar neutrino fluxes; search for non-standard interactions of neutrino; study of the neutrino oscillations on the short baseline with an artificial neutrino source (search for sterile neutrino) in context of SOX project.
119000964
Measurement of the cosmogenic 11C background with the Borexino Counting Test Facility
Within next year, two organic liquid scintillator detectors, Borexino and KamLAND, will start the measurement of the mono‐energetic 7Be solar neutrino flux in real time. Besides this objective, both of them have the potential to detect neutrinos from the pep fusion reaction and the CNO cycle in the Sun.For this purpose, two conditions are required: an extremely low radioactive contamination level and the efficient identification of the 11C background, produced in reactions induced by the residual cosmic muon flux on 12C. In the process, a free neutron is almost always produced. 11C can be tagged on an event by event basis by looking at the three‐fold coincidence with the parent muon track and the subsequent neutron capture on protons. We tested successfully this coincidence method with the Borexino Counting Test Facility. The results are reported here.Moreover, we discuss on the effective potential of Borexino and KamLAND in detecting pep+CNO neutrinos compared to SNO+, a detector specifically designed fo...
121566901
Structural aspects of supersymmetric models on a supermanifold
Abstract We propose an extension of some structural aspects that have succesfully been applied in the development of the theory of quantum fields propagating on a general spacetime manifold so as to include superfield models on a supermanifold.
119266920
No parity anomaly in massless QED3: A BPHZL approach
Abstract In this Letter we call into question the perturbatively parity breakdown at 1-loop for the massless QED 3 frequently claimed in the literature. As long as perturbative quantum field theory is concerned, whether a parity anomaly owing to radiative corrections exists or not shall be definitely proved by using a renormalization method independent of any regularization scheme. Such a problem has been investigated in the framework of BPHZL renormalization method, by adopting the Lowenstein–Zimmermann subtraction scheme. The 1-loop parity-odd contribution to the vacuum-polarization tensor is explicitly computed in the framework of the BPHZL renormalization method. It is shown that a Chern–Simons term is generated at that order induced through the infrared subtractions — which violate parity. We show then that, what is called “parity anomaly”, is in fact a parity-odd counterterm needed for restauring parity.
120792860
Simple parametrizations of light meson properties in hot or dense matter
Abstract Sophisticated calculations of the dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions often need as input properties of light mesons in medium. In this context simple analytical expressions for these quantities which respect chiral symmetry and low-energy current algebra results are most desirable. In the present work we provide such simple expressions based on a bosonized version of the microscopic NJL model. We also study the pion lifetime in hot and dense matter showing that the ratio τ(π − →μ − + ν μ ) τ(π − →e − + ν e ) changes by a factor about three and thus carries a clear signature of the chiral phase transition.
119528722
Gauge independence of the effective potential revisited
We apply the formalism of extended BRS symmetry to the investigation of the gauge dependence of the effective potential in a spontaneously symmetry broken gauge theory. This formalism, which includes a set of Grassmann parameters defined as the BRS variations of the gauge-fixing parameters, allows us to derive in a quick and unambiguous way the related Nielsen identities, which express the physical gauge independence, in a class of generalized 't Hooft gauges, of the effective potential. We show in particular that the validity of the Nielsen identities does not require any constraint on the gauge-fixing parameters, contrary to some claims found in the literature. We use the method of algebraic renormalization, which leads to results independent of the particular renormalization scheme used.
13936057
Microlocal Analysis and Renormalization in Finite Temperature Field Theory
We reassess the problem of renormalization in finite temperature field theory (FTFT). A new point of view elucidates the relation between the ultraviolet divergences for T = 0 and T ¬ = 0 theories and makes clear the reason why the ultraviolet behavior keeps unaffected when we consider the FTFT version associated to a given quantum field theory (QFT). The strength of the derivation one lies on the Hörmander’s criterion for the existence of products of distributions in terms of the wavefront sets of the respective distributions. The approach allows us to regard the FTFT both imaginary and real time formalism at once in a unified way in the contour ordered formalism.