67815721
The angular resolution of the GRAPES-3 array from the shadows of the Moon and the Sun
Abstract The absence of a well established point source of very high energy ( ≳ 10 TeV ) γ-rays in the sky, makes the measurement of the angular resolution and the absolute pointing accuracy of an extensive air shower (EAS) array a challenging task. In the past, several groups have utilized the reduction in the isotropic flux of cosmic rays due to the shadows of the Moon and the Sun, to measure the angular resolution and the absolute pointing accuracy of their arrays. The data collected from the GRAPES-3 EAS array, over the period of 4 years from 2000 to 2003, has been used to observe the shadow of the Moon at a level of ∼ 5 σ and that of the Sun at a lower level of significance. The high density of the detectors in GRAPES-3 enabled an angular resolution of 0.7° to be obtained at energies as low as 30 TeV. The angular resolution studies were further extended by using two other techniques, namely, the even–odd and the left–right methods. All three techniques have yielded nearly identical results on the energy dependent angular resolution.
55926788
A large area muon tracking detector for ultra-high energy cosmic ray astrophysics — the GRAPES-3 experiment
Certain aspects of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic ray astrophysics require correlated studies on the electron and muon components of air showers, namely, the search for cosmic ray sources through g-ray astronomy and studies on the variation of the nuclear composition of primary cosmic rays with energy. While studies on the electron component provide basic information about the arrival direction and energy, it is the muon component that plays a crucial role in distinguishing primary g-rays from charged cosmic ray particles and in determining the composition. A large area (560m), tracking muon detector of the GRAPES-3 experiment, operating at Ooty in southern India, has been designed for detailed studies on both of these aspects of UHE cosmic ray astrophysics. We present here the details of the muon detector, associated electronics and the data acquisition system. A brief discussion of the potential of the muon detector is presented through simulation studies. r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 98.70.Sa; 96.40.Pq; 96.40.De; 98.70.Rz; 95.55.Vj; 13.85.Tp
117567170
The average mass number of primary cosmic rays around the knee region derived from Grapes III array at Ooty
We analyzed three months data on air showers (total 10 showers in 10<Ne<10) observed with the GRAPES III experiment during 2001. The shower array consists of 257 scintillation detectors (1m each) and 16 muon detectors (35 m each). Very large area (560m) of the muon detectors gives good statistics for estimating the number of muons even for small air showers. We present the correlation between muon multiplicity distribution and shower size. This result is compared with simulation (Corsika code with QGS Jet model) for primary energy between 10 eV and 10 eV. We find the average mass number in this energy region follows gradual increase and mixing of proton and heavy nuclei model fits well our observed data.
8554087
An episode of ultrahigh energy radiation from the gamma -ray source Geminga: GRAPES I observations at Ooty during 1984-1987.
A study of showers arriving from the direction of the γ-ray source Geminga (1E0630 + 178) has shown evidence for emission of ultrahigh energy radiation during the one week interval October 10-16, 1986. 83 showers were observed in the source bin as against an expected background of 44.1. The probability of observing this excess based on Monte Carlo simulations is less than 10 −4 . The flux observed during this period (1.00±0.24)×10 −11 cm −2 s −1 at energies ≥10 14 eV corresponds to a time-averaged luminosity of 6×10 32 erg s −1
10726039
A micron resolution optical scanner for characterization of silicon detectors.
The emergence of high position resolution (∼10 μm) silicon detectors in recent times have highlighted the urgent need for the development of new automated optical scanners of micron level resolution suited for characterizing microscopic features of these detectors. More specifically, for the newly developed silicon photo-multipliers (SiPM) that are compact, possessing excellent photon detection efficiency with gain comparable to photo-multiplier tube. In a short time, since their invention the SiPMs are already being widely used in several high-energy physics and astrophysics experiments as the photon readout element. The SiPM is a high quantum efficiency, multi-pixel photon counting detector with fast timing and high gain. The presence of a wide variety of photo sensitive silicon detectors with high spatial resolution requires their performance evaluation to be carried out by photon beams of very compact spot size. We have designed a high resolution optical scanner that provides a monochromatic focused beam on a target plane. The transverse size of the beam was measured by the knife-edge method to be 1.7 μm at 1 - σ level. Since the beam size was an order of magnitude smaller than the typical feature size of silicon detectors, this optical scanner can be used for selective excitation of these detectors. The design and operational details of the optical scanner, high precision programmed movement of target plane (0.1 μm) integrated with general purpose data acquisition system developed for recording static and transient response photo sensitive silicon detector are reported in this paper. Entire functionality of scanner is validated by using it for selective excitation of individual pixels in a SiPM and identifying response of active and dead regions within SiPM. Results from these studies are presented in this paper.
109607695
Vacuum system design for twenty-cell PWT Linac structure
This paper describes the vacuum system design for a 20-cell Plane Wave Transformer (PWT) type LINear ACcelerator (LINAC) structure to obtain a vacuum better than 5×10−8 mbar everywhere inside the linac structure. Specific material out-gassing rate for a 20-cell linac is determined on the basis of vacuum achieved in a similar type of 8-cell linac structure, which is smaller in length, and presently under operation in the Compact Ultrafast TEra-hertz Free Electron Laser (CUTE-FEL) beam transport line at RRCAT.
118245922
Cygnus experiment at Los Alamos
The Cygnus experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory has been designed to study, with high angular accuracy, point sources of gamma rays of energy above 1014 eV. The experimental detector consists of an air shower array to observe gamma-ray showers and a shielded, large-area track detector to study the muon content of the showers. In this paper we present preliminary data from the array and describe its performance.
121323084
Microscopic nucleon optical model potential at low energies
Nuclear optical model potentials at low energies have been computed utilizing the two (Micro I and Micro II) versions of the microscopic optical model of Jeukenne et al. A comparison has been made of the experimental nucleon-nucleus interaction data for E<10 MeV with the theoretical predictions obtained using the microscopic optical model.
124420840
Cosmic Ray Isotope Measurements using the Cherenkov-Rigidity Technique in ISOMAX
The Isotope Magnet Experiment, ISOMAX, which had its first flight in August 1998, is designed to measure the isotopic composition of the light elements using a complement of three major detector systems: a magnetic spectrometer, a time-of-flight (TOF) system, and two Cherenkov detectors. ISOMAX measures mass by combining the velocity measurement with charge and magnetic rigidity (momentum/charge) measurements. In the energy range from 1.1 to 1.7 GeV/nucleon, the velocity measurements are provided by two aerogel Cherenkov counters. The aerogel radiators have a nominal index-of-refraction n = 1.14 corresponding to an energy threshold of 1.08 Ge V /nucleon, which complements and extends the energy range covered by the TOF. Combining the velocity measurement with a measurement of rigidity results in a determination of isotope mass with an expected resolution of ::;: 0.25 amu. We present preliminary isotope data.
53575170
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the staggered Dirac operator at finite temperature
We examine the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the staggered Dirac operator on thermal ensembles created in QCD with two flavors of staggered quarks. We see that across the phase transition a gap opens in the spectrum. For finite volume lattices in the low-temperature phase the eigenvectors are extended, but generic field configurations in the high temperature phase give rise to localized eigenstates. We examine measures of the stability of such localization and find that at finite volumes localization occurs through Mott's mechanism of the formation of mobility edges. However, the band gap between the localized and extended states seem to scale to zero in the limit of large volume.
123682181
Spin dependent gluon densities from largePT photon and dimuon production
AbstractWe investigate spin asymmetries in highpT photon and dimuon production and show that the spin dependent gluon density can be extracted reliably frompp collisions with these final states. The statement remains true even when the balancing jet is not observed. Hence fixed target experiments can be used to measure the spin dependent gluon density. We also compute the asymmetries in
$$p\bar p$$
 collisions, and show that the EMC measurement of the spin structure function can be verified and the spin dependent gluon density can be extracted from these experiments.