9512698
Astroparticle physics with a customized low-background Broad Energy Germanium detector
We have found that modified Broad Energy Ge detectors produced by CANBERRA have several promising features, including large mass, low electronic noise, and excellent pulse-shape analysis capabilities. Modified BEGe detectors obtain these capabilities due to their low-capacitance “point-contact” electrode configuration. Modified BEGes are also the only point-contact design fabricated on a commercial basis. We have deployed a modified BEGe, named “MALBEK” in a low-background cryostat and shield in the Kimballton Underground Research Facility, located in Ripplemead, Virginia at a depth of 1450 meters water equivalent. We will focus on detector characteristics, data acquisition, and analysis techniques used with MALBEK.
22349078
Development of a data acquisition system for the MALBEK Low-Background BEGe detector
The Majorana collaboration is currently building the Majorana Demonstrator, an array of natural and en­riched high purity germanium (HPGe) detectors that will search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of the 76Ge isotope. As part of the Demonstrator research and development effort we have deployed a prototype 450 g modified broad energy germanium (BEGe) detector at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility (KURF) in Ripplemeade, VA. This detector, the Majorana Low-Background BEGe Detector at KURF (MAL-BEK), will examine detector performance and background in the double-beta decay region of interest as well as explore the sub-keV energy spectrum in a search for light weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). In order to achieve this goal we have implemented a modular and highly automated data acquisition system (DAQ) capable of digitizing sub-keV signals and running autonomously in an underground environment. The DAQ is built using the Object-oriented Real-time Control and Acquisition (ORCA) application. ORCA enables the remote monitoring and control of all DAQ electronics, hardware, and slow control systems. A built in scripting language, ORCAScript, allows for the automation of run-time experimental parameters, real-time event building and data filtering, and system monitoring with email notification and alarms. The implemented MALBEK DAQ is currently operating at KURF in a production data taking mode.
16108826
Validation of spallation neutron production and propagation within Geant4
Using simulations to understand backgrounds from muon-induced neutrons is important in designing next-generation low-background underground experiments. Validation of relevant physics within the Geant4 simulation package has been completed by comparing to data from two recent experiments. Verification focused on the production and propagation of neutrons at energies important to underground experiments. Discrepancies were observed between experimental data and the simulation. Techniques were explored to correct for these discrepancies.
116949545
A search for bremsstrahlung solar axions using the Majorana Low-background BEGe detector at Kimballton (MALBEK)
(95% CL) is placedon the direct coupling of DFSZ model axions to electrons. The prospects for the sensitivity ofthe Majorana Demonstrator array of point-contact germanium detectors to solar axions arediscussed in the context of the model-independent annual modulation due to the seasonal variationof the earth-sun distance.
35493425
A magnetically shielded room with ultra low residual field and gradient.
A versatile and portable magnetically shielded room with a field of (700 ± 200) pT within a central volume of 1 m × 1 m × 1 m and a field gradient less than 300 pT/m, achieved without any external field stabilization or compensation, is described. This performance represents more than a hundredfold improvement of the state of the art for a two-layer magnetic shield and provides an environment suitable for a next generation of precision experiments in fundamental physics at low energies; in particular, searches for electric dipole moments of fundamental systems and tests of Lorentz-invariance based on spin-precession experiments. Studies of the residual fields and their sources enable improved design of future ultra-low gradient environments and experimental apparatus. This has implications for developments of magnetometry beyond the femto-Tesla scale in, for example, biomagnetism, geosciences, and security applications and in general low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements.
121657706
A Pulse Shape Analysis Technique for the MAJORANA Experiment
Abstract In order to achieve background count rates sufficiently low so as to allow the observation of rare events such as neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay, background suppression techniques are routinely employed. In this paper we present details of a novel Pulse Shape Analysis algorithm, which allows single-site events such as 0νββ decay to be distinguished from multi-site background events in germanium detectors. The algorithm, which is based on the event-by-event χ 2 fitting of experimental signals to a basis data set of unique single-site pulse shapes, has been developed through simulation studies and tested experimentally using a Broad Energy Germanium detector. It is found experimentally that the technique is able to successfully identify and reject 99% of multi-site events in the single escape peak associated with the gamma decay of 208 Tl, whilst maintaining a survival probability of 98% for neutrinoless double-beta-decay-like double escape peak events.
18733586
Remodeling the B-Model
We propose a complete, new formalism to compute unambiguously B-model open and closed amplitudes in local Calabi–Yau geometries, including the mirrors of toric manifolds. The formalism is based on the recursive solution of matrix models recently proposed by Eynard and Orantin. The resulting amplitudes are non-perturbative in both the closed and the open moduli. The formalism can then be used to study stringy phase transitions in the open/closed moduli space. At large radius, this formalism may be seen as a mirror formalism to the topological vertex, but it is also valid in other phases in the moduli space. We develop the formalism in general and provide an extensive number of checks, including a test at the orbifold point of Ap fibrations, where the amplitudes compute the ’t Hooft expansion of vevs of Wilson loops in Chern-Simons theory on lens spaces. We also use our formalism to predict the disk amplitude for the orbifold $${{mathbb {C}}^3 /{mathbb{Z}}_3}$$ .
509033
Holomorphic anomaly and matrix models
The genus g free energies of matrix models can be promoted to modular invariant, non-holomorphic amplitudes which only depend on the geometry of the classical spectral curve. We show that these non-holomorphic amplitudes satisfy the holomorphic anomaly equations of Bershadsky, Cecotti, Ooguri and Vafa. We derive as well holomorphic anomaly equations for the open string sector. These results provide evidence at all genera for the Dijkgraaf-Vafa conjecture relating matrix models to type B topological strings on certain local Calabi-Yau threefolds.
55759997
ABJM theory as a Fermi gas
The partition function on the 3-sphere of many supersymmetric Chern?Simons-matter theories reduces, by localization, to a matrix model. We develop a new method to study these models in the M-theory limit, but at all orders in the 1/N expansion. The method is based on reformulating the matrix model as the partition function of an ideal Fermi gas with a non-trivial, one-particle quantum Hamiltonian. This new approach leads to a completely elementary derivation of the N3/2 behavior for ABJM theory and quiver Chern?Simons-matter theories. In addition, the full series of 1/N corrections to the original matrix integral can be simply determined by a next-to-leading calculation in the WKB or semiclassical expansion of the quantum gas, and we show that, for several quiver Chern?Simons-matter theories, it is given by an Airy function. This generalizes a recent result of Fuji, Hirano and Moriyama for ABJM theory. It turns out that the semiclassical expansion of the Fermi gas corresponds to a strong coupling expansion in type IIA theory, and it is dual to the genus expansion. This allows us to calculate explicitly non-perturbative effects due to D0-?and D2-brane instantons in the AdS background.
54875630
Lectures on localization and matrix models in supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter theories
In these lectures, I give a pedagogical presentation of some of the recent progress in supersymmetric Chern–Simons-matter theories, coming from the use of localization and matrix model techniques. The goal is to provide a simple derivation of the exact interpolating function for the free energy of ABJM theory on the three-sphere, which implies in particular the N3/2 behavior at strong coupling. I explain in detail part of the background needed to understand this derivation, like holographic renormalization, localization of path integrals and large N techniques in matrix models.
53418704
Non-perturbative effects and the refined topological string
A bstractThe partition function of ABJM theory on the three-sphere has nonperturbative corrections due to membrane instantons in the M-theory dual. We show that the full series of membrane instanton corrections is completely determined by the refined topological string on the Calabi-Yau manifold known as local ℙ1 × ℙ1, in the NekrasovShatashvili limit. Our result can be interpreted as a first-principles derivation of the full series of non-perturbative effects for the closed topological string on this Calabi-Yau background. Based on this, we make a proposal for the non-perturbative free energy of topological strings on general, local Calabi-Yau manifolds.