119165866
A Combined Analysis of Clusters of Galaxies - Gamma Ray Emission from Cosmic Rays and Dark Matter
In this licentiate thesis, I report a search for GeV γ rays towards the location of Galaxy clusters. I mainly discuss the results of a search for cosmic-ray (CR) induced γ-ray emission but also briefly elaborate on a related study, searching for Dark Matter (DM)-induced γ-ray emission from Galaxy clusters. In addition, I provide a detailed discussion on the analysis tools that were used and discuss some additional tests that are not included in the papers this licentiate thesis is based on.In a comprehensive search almost covering the entire sky, we find no statistically significant evidence for either DM or CR induced γ rays from galaxy clusters. Thus we report upper limits on CR quantities that exclude emission scenarios in which the maximum hadronic injection efficiency is larger than 21% and associated limits on the maximum CR-to-thermal pressure ratio, . In addition, we update previous flux upper limits given a new set of modeling and taking the source extension into account. For a DM masses below 100 GeV, we exclude annihilation cross sections above ∼ 10−24 cm3 s−1 into bb. For decaying DM, we exclude decay times lower than 1027 s over the mass range of 20 GeV– 2 TeV.
118846253
Future dark matter searches with the GLAST-LAT
The Large Area Telescope, one of two instruments on the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope mission, scheduled for launch by NASA in early 2008, is a high-energy gamma-ray telescope, sensitive to an energy range from approximately 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV and exceeding the sensitivity of its predecessor EGRET by nearly two orders of magnitude. Annihilation of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP), predicted in many extensions of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, may give rise to a signal in gamma-ray spectra from many cosmic sources. In this contribution we give an overview of the searches for WIMP Dark Matter performed by the GLAST-LAT collaboration, in particular we discuss the sensitivity of GLAST to thermal WIMP dark matter in the galactic center and to high energy (50 -150 GeV) gamma-ray lines resulting from WIMP pair annihilation into two gamma-rays.
18437847
Fluctuation studies and energy reconstruction in a segmented calorimeter
In order to better understand energy estimation of electromagnetic showers in segmented calorimeters, detailed Geant4 simulation studies of electromagnetic showers in the energy range 1-100 GeV in CsI have been performed. When sampled in layers of 1.99 cm thickness, corresponding to 1.08 radiation lengths, the energy fluctuations in the samples show distributions that vary significantly with depth. The energy distributions are similar for incident electrons and photons and were found to change systematically along the shower, varying little with the initial energy. Three probability distributions have been fitted to the data: negative binomial, log-normal and Gaussian distributions, none of which gives a good fit over the full shower length. The obtained parameterizations might be useful in the use of the maximum likelihood method for estimating the energy. Two methods for estimating the energy have also been studied. One method is based on fitting individual longitudinal shower profiles with a Gamma-function, the other one corrects the measured energy for leakage by utilizing the energy deposited in the last layer. Our simulations indicate that the last-layer correction method applied to photons and electrons of 1 and 10 GeV gives about a factor of 2 improvement in the energy resolution.
117090989
Statistical analysis of detection of, and upper limits on, dark matter lines
In this note we present calculations of coverage and power for three different methods which could be used to calculate upper limits and/or claim discovery in a GLAST‐LAT search for a dark matter line. The methods considered are Profile Likelihood, Bayesian factors and likelihood ratio confidence intervals and the calculations are done considering a simple benchmark model of two uncorrelated Poissonian measurements. Profile likelihood has the best coverage properties, the standard χ2 test the worst. For the power, the situation is vice‐versa. In choosing a method one has to consider the false detection rate (1 ‐ coverage) and counterweigh it to the possible achievable power.
118516643
Anisotropies in the diffuse gamma-ray background from dark matter with Fermi LAT: a closer look
This thesis addresses the isotropic diffuse gamma-ray background, as measured by the Fermi gamma ray space telescope, and its implications for indirect detection of dark matter. We describe the measurement of the isotropic background, including also an alternative analysis method besides the one published by the Fermi-LAT collaboration. The measured isotropic diffuse background is compatible with a power law differential energy spectrum with a spectral index of -2.41 ± 0.05 and -2.39 ± 0.08, for the two analysis methods respectively. This is a softer spectrum than previously reported by the EGRET experiment. This rules out any dominant contribution with a significantly different shape, e.g. from dark matter, in the energy range 20 MeV to 102.4 GeV. Instead we present upper limits on a signal originating from annihilating dark matter of extragalactic origin. The uncertainty in the dark matter signal is primarily dependent on the cosmological evolution of the dark matter distribution. We use recent N-body simulations of structure formation, as well as a semi-analytical calculation, to assess this uncertainty. We investigate three main annihilation channels and find that in some, but not in all, of our scenarios we can start to probe, and sometimes rule out, interesting parameter spaces of particle physics models beyond the standard model.We also investigate the possibility to use the angular anisotropies of the annihilation signal to separate it from a background originating from conventional sources, e.g. from active galactic nuclei. By carefully modelling the performance of the Fermi gamma-ray space telescope and galactic foregrounds we find that this method could be as sensitive as using information from the energy spectrum only.
15402465
Coverage of Confidence Intervals for Poisson Statistics in Presence of Systematic Uncertainties
Coverage of Confidence Intervals for Poisson Statistics in Presence of Systematic Uncertainties
14551471
The 1994 Fermilab Fixed Target Program
This paper highlights the results of the Fermilab Fixed Target Program that were announced between October, 1993 and October, 1994. These results are drawn from 18 experiments that took data in the 1985, 1987 and 1990/91 fixed target running periods. For this discussion, the Fermilab Fixed Target Program is divided into 5 major topics: hadron structure, precision electroweak measurements, heavy quark production, polarization and magnetic moments, and searches for new phenomena. However, it should be noted that most experiments span several subtopics. Also, measurements within each subtopic often affect the results in other subtopics. For example, parton distributions from hadron structure measurements are used in the studies of heavy quark production.
15663054
Precision structure function measurements from CCFR / NUTEV
New results from the CCFR Collaboration on the structure functions F 2 and xF 3 are presented. Neutrino scattering structure function measurements oer a unique tool to probe the strong interactions. The parity-violating structure function xF 3 (x; Q 2) can only be measured in deep inelastic neutrino scattering. Precise measurements of the structure function F 2 (x; Q 2) can also be obtained. The predicted Q 2 evolution of these structure functions can be used to test perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics as well as to measure the strong coupling constant, s , and the valence, sea, and gluon parton distributions.
2261610
Atmospheric tau neutrinos in a multikiloton liquid argon detector
An ultralarge liquid argon time projection chamber based neutrino detector will have the uncommon ability to detect atmospheric {nu}{sub {tau}}/{nu}{tau} events. This paper discusses the most promising modes for identifying charged current {nu}{sub {tau}}/{nu}{tau}, and shows that, with simple kinematic cuts, {approx}30 {nu}{sub {tau}}+{nu}{tau} interactions can be isolated in a 100 kt{center_dot}yr exposure, with greater than 4{sigma} significance. This sample is sufficient to perform flux-averaged total cross-section and cross-section shape parametrization measurements--the first steps toward using {nu}{sub {tau}}/{nu}{tau} to search for physics beyond the standard model.
208856461
Search for core-collapse supernovae using the MiniBooNE neutrino detector
We present a search for core-collapse supernovae in the Milky Way galaxy, using the MiniBooNE neutrino detector. No evidence is found for core-collapse supernovae occurring in our Galaxy in the period from December 14, 2004 to July 31, 2008, corresponding to 98% live time for collection. We set a limit on the core-collapse supernova rate out to a distance of 13.4 kpc to be less than 0.69 supernovae per year at 90% C.L.
561638
Coherent neutrino scattering in dark matter detectors
Coherent elastic neutrino- and WIMP-nucleus interaction signatures are expected to be quite similar. This paper discusses how a next generation ton-scale dark matter detector could discover neutrino-nucleus coherent scattering, a precisely-predicted Standard Model process. A high intensity pion- and muon- decay-at-rest neutrino source recently proposed for oscillation physics at underground laboratories would provide the neutrinos for these measurements. In this paper, we calculate raw rates for various target materials commonly used in dark matter detectors and show that discovery of this interaction is possible with a 2 ton$\cdot$year GEODM exposure in an optimistic energy threshold and efficiency scenario. We also study the effects of the neutrino source on WIMP sensitivity and discuss the modulated neutrino signal as a sensitivity/consistency check between different dark matter experiments at DUSEL. Furthermore, we consider the possibility of coherent neutrino physics with a GEODM module placed within tens of meters of the neutrino source.