Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Searching For Signals Of Dark Matter Decay, Gardner R. Marshall, William Hester

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Dark matter is believed to make up approximately eighty-three percent of the matter in the universe. Despite its apparent abundance, it has not yet been directly detected, and it is not known what types of particles it is composed of. Efforts to understand what dark matter is made of and how it fits into the Standard Model of particle physics is currently an important and active area of research. In this paper we investigate a method of studying dark matter indirectly by using terrestrial neutrino telescopes to search for signs of dark matter decay. In particular, we study leptonically decaying …

Rosenbluth Separation Of The Π0 Electroproduction Cross Section Off The Neutron, M. Mazouz, Z. Ahmed, H. Albataineh, K. Allada, K. A. Aniol, V. Bellini, M. Benali, W. Boeglin, P. Bertin, M. Canan, C. E. Hyde, S. Koirala, M. N. H. Rashad

Physics Faculty Publications

We report the first longitudinal-transverse separation of the deeply virtual exclusive π⁰ electroproduction cross section off the neutron and coherent deuteron. The corresponding four structure functions dσ_L/dt, dσ_T/dt, dσ_LT/dt, and dσ_TT/dt are extracted as a function of the momentum transfer to the recoil system at Q² = 1.75 GeV² and x_B = 0.36. The ed -> edπ⁰ cross sections are found compatible with the small values expected from theoretical models. The en -> enπ⁰ cross sections show a dominance from the response to transversely polarized …

Improvements For The T0c+ Geometry Of The Fast Interaction Trigger (Fit) Upgrade To Alice At The Cern Lhc, Noah Miller

Physics

The purpose of the ALICE experiment at CERN is to investigate the properties of the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma formed in the high-energy collisions of lead nuclei in the CERN Large Hadron Collider. ALICE has been collecting data since 2009. The upcoming upgrade of the CERN LHC injectors during 2019-20 will boost the luminosity and the collision rate beyond the design parameters for several of the key ALICE detectors including the forward trigger detectors. The new Fast Interaction Trigger (FIT) will enable ALICE to discriminate beam-beam interactions with a 99% efficiency for the collisions generated by the LHC at a …

Observing Orbital Angular Momentum Transfer From Electron Vortex Beams To Matter, Hannah Devyldere

Senior Theses

It is possible to produce electron beams with non-zero orbital angular momentum. Such beams, known as electron vortex beams, are theoretically able to transfer their orbital angular momenta to matter, causing the matter to rotate. Nanoparticles in an aqueous solution were observed with an electron vortex beam to detect the transfer of orbital angular momentum in a low-friction environment. Observing the transfer of orbital angular momentum to particles in solution is difficult due to the necessity of imaging the particles through a liquid and the random movement of particles in the solution. Thus, orbital angular momentum transfer to matter could …

Searching For The Origins Of Matter, Joshua L. Barrow

Andrews Research Conference

The big bang and inflation are experimentally confirmed by multitudes of astronomical observations, yet theoretical tension still exists upon a very important question: why is there something rather than nothing? In other words, why are there unequal amounts of matter and antimatter? Why did a supposedly initially symmetric state not annihilate perfectly?

The breaking of this symmetry has allowed for all of material existence--also known as baryogenesis, the prevalence of matter over antimatter--and yields the theoretical possibility of direct detection by observation of baryon number violating mechanisms, which have previously never been observed.

One such plausible mechanism can be found …

Discontinuities In The Electromagnetic Fields Of Vortex Beams In The Complex Source-Sink Model, Andrew Vikartofsky, Liang-Wen Pi, Anthony F. Starace

Anthony F. Starace Publications

An analytical discontinuity is reported in what was thought to be the discontinuity-free exact nonparaxial vortex beam phasor obtained within the complex source-sink model. This discontinuity appears for all odd values of the orbital angular momentum mode. Such discontinuities in the phasor lead to nonphysical discontinuities in the real electromagnetic field components. We identify the source of the discontinuities, and provide graphical evidence of the discontinuous real electric fields for the first and third orbital angular momentum modes. A simple means of avoiding these discontinuities is presented.

Jet-Hadron Correlations Relative To The Event Plane Pb--Pb Collisions At The Lhc In Alice, Joel Anthony Mazer

Doctoral Dissertations

In relativistic heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a hot, dense and strongly interacting medium known as the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) is produced. Quarks and gluons from incoming nuclei collide to produce partons at high momenta early in the collisions. By fragmenting into collimated sprays of hadrons, these partons form 'jets'. Within the framework of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD), jet production is well understood in pp collisions. We can use jets measured in pp interactions as a baseline reference for comparing to heavy ion collision systems to detect and study jet quenching. The jet quenching mechanism …

Characterization Of Reactor Background Radiation At Hfir For The Prospect Experiment, Blaine Alexander Heffron

Masters Theses

This work describes an investigation of the background radiation present at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) on behalf of the PROSPECT collaboration. The PROSPECT experiment is designed to make a precision measurement of the antineutrino spectrum at HFIR and search for sterile neutrinos. Temporal and spacial variation of neutron and gamma backgrounds at the experiment site for the PROSPECT detector are measured in order to determine if the reactor correlated radiation will contribute a significant background to the inverse beta decay signal. Knowledge of spacial background variation will also be used to inform the design of a local shield …

Modeling Local Crabbing Dynamics In The Jleic Ion Collider Ring, Salvador Sosa Guitron, Vasiliy Morozov, Jean Delayen

Physics Faculty Publications

The Jefferson Lab Electron-Ion Collider (JLEIC) design considers a 50 mrad crossing angle at the Interaction Point. Without appropriate compensation, this could geometrically reduce the luminosity by an order of magnitude. A local crabbing scheme is implemented to avoid the luminosity loss: crab cavities are placed at both sides of the interaction region to restore a head-on collision scenario. In this contribution, we report on the implementation of a local crabbing scheme in the JLEIC ion ring. The effects of this correction scheme on the stability of proton bunches are analyzed using the particle tracking software elegant.

Wakefield Analysis Of Superconducting Rf-Dipole Cavities, Subashini De Silva, Jean Delayen

Physics Faculty Publications

RF-dipole crabbing cavities are being considered for a variety of crabbing applications. Some of the applications are the crabbing cavity systems for LHC High Luminosity Upgrade and the proposed Electron-Ion Collider for Jefferson Lab. The design requirements in the current applications require the cavities to incorporate complex damping schemes to suppress the higher order modes that may be excited by the high intensity proton or electron beams traversing through the cavities. The number of cavities required to achieve the desired high transverse voltage, and the complexity in the cavity geometries also contributes to the wakefields generated by beams. This paper …

Accuracy And Stability Of Integration Methods For Neutrino Transport In Core Collapse Supernovae, Kyle A. Gregory

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

What Are The Low-Q And Large-X Boundaries Of Collinear Qcd Factorization Theorems?, E. Moffat, W. Melnitchouk, T. C. Rogers, N. Sato

Physics Faculty Publications

Familiar factorized descriptions of classic QCD processes such as deeply inelastic scattering (DIS) apply in the limit of very large hard scales, much larger than nonperturbative mass scales and other nonperturbative physical properties like intrinsic transverse momentum. Since many interesting DIS studies occur at kinematic regions where the hard scale, Q ∼ 1-2 GeV, is not very much greater than the hadron masses involved, and the Bjorken scaling variable x_bj is large, x_bj ≳ 0.5, it is important to examine the boundaries of the most basic factorization assumptions and assess whether improved starting points are needed. Using an …

Measurement Of The Cross Section And Longitudinal Double-Spin Asymmetry For Dijet Production In Polarized Pp Collisions At √S = 200 Gev, L. Adamczyk, James K. Adkins, G. Agakishiev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, N. N. Ajitanand, I. Alekseev, D. M. Anderson, R. Aoyama, A. Aparin, D. Arkhipkin, E. C. Aschenauer, M. U. Ashraf, A. Attri, G. S. Averichev, X. Bai, V. Bairathi, K. Barish, A. Behera, R. Bellwied, A. Bhasin, A. K. Bhati, P. Bhattarai, J. Bielcik, J. Bielcikova, L. C. Bland, I. G. Bordyuzhin, J. Bouchet, J. D. Brandenburg, A. V. Brandin, Renee H. Fatemi, Suvarna Ramachandran

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report the first measurement of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry A_LL for midrapidity dijet production in polarized pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of √s = 200  GeV. The dijet cross section was measured and is shown to be consistent with next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD predictions. A_LL results are presented for two distinct topologies, defined by the jet pseudorapidities, and are compared to predictions from several recent NLO global analyses. The measured asymmetries, the first such correlation measurements, support those analyses that find positive gluon polarization at the level of roughly 0.2 over the region of …

Perturbative Renormalization And Mixing Of Quark And Glue Energy-Momentum Tensors On The Lattice, Michael J. Glatzmaier, Keh-Fei Liu, Yi-Bo Yang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report the renormalization and mixing constants to one-loop order for the quark and gluon energy-momentum (EM) tensor operators on the lattice. A unique aspect of this mixing calculation is the definition of the glue EM tensor operator. The glue operator is comprised of gauge-field tensors constructed from the overlap Dirac operator. The resulting perturbative calculations are performed using methods similar to the Kawai approach using the Wilson fermion and gauge actions for all QCD vertices and the overlap Dirac operator to define the glue EM tensor. Our results are used to connect the lattice QCD results of quark and …

Crabbing System For An Electron-Ion Collider, Alejandro Castilla

Physics Theses & Dissertations

As high energy and nuclear physicists continue to push further the boundaries of knowledge using colliders, there is an imperative need, not only to increase the colliding beams’ energies, but also to improve the accuracy of the experiments, and to collect a large quantity of events with good statistical sensitivity. To achieve the latter, it is necessary to collect more data by increasing the rate at which these pro- cesses are being produced and detected in the machine. This rate of events depends directly on the machine’s luminosity. The luminosity itself is proportional to the frequency at which the beams …

A Search For Double Beta Decay Of Xenon To Excited States Of Barium With Exo-200, Sereres Johnston

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis presents searches for several modes of double beta decays of 136Xe to two low-lying excited levels of 136Ba. For each final level, both 2ν and 0ν double beta decay processes are considered. The data and general techniques developed by the EXO-200 collaboration are used, including a Machine Learning process to improve sensitivity in multivariate space. EXO-200 is an experimental program searching for 0νββ decay in a time projection chamber filled with 175 kg of liquid Xenon enriched to 80% 136Xe, functioning as both source and detector. Experimental searches of double beta decay with 136Xe and other isotopes are …

Enhancing High-Order-Harmonic Generation By Time Delays Between Two-Color, Few-Cycle Pulses, Dian Peng, Liang-Wen Pi, M. V. Frolov, Anthony F. Starace

Anthony F. Starace Publications

Use of time delays in high-order-harmonic generation (HHG) driven by intense two-color, few-cycle pulses is investigated in order to determine means of optimizing HHG intensities and plateau cutoff energies. Based upon numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schrõdinger equation for the H atom as well as analytical analyses, we show that introducing a time delay between the two-color, few-cycle pulses can result in an enhancement of the intensity of the HHG spectrum by an order of magnitude (or more) at the cost of a reduction in the HHG plateau cutoff energy. Results for both positive and negative time delays as well …

Glue Spin And Helicity In The Proton From Lattice Qcd, Yi-Bo Yang, Raza Sabbir Sufian, Andrei Alexandru, Terrence Draper, Michael J. Glatzmaier, Keh-Fei Liu, Yong Zhao

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report the first lattice QCD calculation of the glue spin in the nucleon. The lattice calculation is carried out with valence overlap fermions on 2 + 1 flavor domain-wall fermion gauge configurations on four lattice spacings and four volumes including an ensemble with physical values for the quark masses. The glue spin SG in the Coulomb gauge in the modified minimal subtraction (MS¯) scheme is obtained with one-loop perturbative matching. We find the results fairly insensitive to lattice spacing and quark masses. We also find that the proton momentum dependence of S_G in the range 0 ≤ |p …

Pion Distribution Amplitude And Quasidistributions, A. V. Radyushkin

Physics Faculty Publications

We extend our analysis of quasidistributions onto the pion distribution amplitude. Using the formalism of parton virtuality distribution amplitudes, we establish a connection between the pion transverse momentum dependent distribution amplitude Ψ(x, k²_⊥) and the pion quasidistribution amplitude (QDA) Q_π(y, p₃). We build models for the QDAs from the virtuality-distribution-amplitude-based models for soft transverse momentum dependent distribution amplitudes, and analyze the p₃ dependence of the resulting QDAs. As there are many models claimed to describe the primordial shape of the pion distribution amplitude, we present the p₃-evolution …

Particle Physics Model For The 17 Mev Anomaly In Beryllium Nuclear Decays, Jonathan L. Feng, Bartosz Fornal, Iftah Galon, Susan Gardner, Jordan Smolinsky, Tim M. P. Tait, Philip Tanedo

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The 6.8σ anomaly in excited ⁸Be nuclear decays via internal pair creation is fit well by a new particle interpretation. In a previous analysis, we showed that a 17 MeV protophobic gauge boson provides a particle physics explanation of the anomaly consistent with all existing constraints. Here we begin with a review of the physics of internal pair creation in ⁸Be decays and the characteristics of the observed anomaly. To develop its particle interpretation, we provide an effective operator analysis for excited ⁸Be decays to particles with a variety of spins and parities and show that …

Line Tension And Its Influence On Droplets And Particles At Surfaces, Bruce M. Law, Sean P. Mcbride, Jiang Yong Wang, Haeng Sub Wi, Govind Paneru, Santigo Betelu, Baku Ushijima, Youichi Takata, Bret Flanders, Fernando Bresme, Hiroki Matsubara, Takanori Takiue, Makoto Aratono

Dr. Sean P. McBride

In this review we examine the influence of the line tension s on droplets and particles at surfaces. The line tension influences the nucleation behavior and contact angle of liquid droplets at both liquid and solid surfaces and alters the attachment energetics of solid particles to liquid surfaces. Many factors, occurring over a wide range of length scales, contribute to the line tension. On atomic scales, atomic rearrangements and reorientations of submolecular components give rise to an atomic line tension contribution satom (1 nN), which depends on the similarity/dissimilarity of the droplet/particle surface composition compared with the surface upon which …

Line Tension And Its Influence On Droplets And Particles At Surfaces, Bruce M. Law, Sean P. Mcbride, Jiang Yong Wang, Haeng Sub Wi, Govind Paneru, Santigo Betelu, Baku Ushijima, Youichi Takata, Bret Flanders, Fernando Bresme, Hiroki Matsubara, Takanori Takiue, Makoto Aratono

Physics Faculty Research

In this review we examine the influence of the line tension s on droplets and particles at surfaces. The line tension influences the nucleation behavior and contact angle of liquid droplets at both liquid and solid surfaces and alters the attachment energetics of solid particles to liquid surfaces. Many factors, occurring over a wide range of length scales, contribute to the line tension. On atomic scales, atomic rearrangements and reorientations of submolecular components give rise to an atomic line tension contribution satom (1 nN), which depends on the similarity/dissimilarity of the droplet/particle surface composition compared with the surface upon which …

Harmonically Resonant Cavity As A Bunch Length Monitor, B. Roberts, M. Pablo, E. Forman, J. Grames, F. Hannon, R.Kazimi W. Moore, M. M. Ali

Physics Faculty Publications

A compact, harmonically-resonant cavity with a fundamental resonant frequency of 1497 MHz was used to evaluate the temporal characteristics of electron bunches produced by a 130 kV dc high voltage spin-polarized photoelectron source at the Continuous Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) photoinjector, delivered at 249.5 and 499 MHz repetition rates and ranging in width from 45 to 150 picoseconds (FWHM). The cavity’s antenna was attached directly to a sampling oscilloscope that detected the electron bunches as they passed through the cavity bore with a sensitivity of ~ mV/ μA. The oscilloscope wave-forms are a superposition of the harmonic modes excited by …

Locality And Efficient Evaluation Of Lattice Composite Fields: Overlap-Based Gauge Operators, Andrei Alexandru, Ivan Horváth

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We propose a novel general approach to locality of lattice composite fields, which in case of QCD involves locality in both quark and gauge degrees of freedom. The method is applied to gauge operators based on the overlap Dirac matrix elements, showing for the first time their local nature on realistic path-integral backgrounds. The framework entails a method for efficient evaluation of such nonultralocal operators, whose computational cost is volume independent at fixed accuracy, and only grows logarithmically as this accuracy approaches zero. This makes computation of useful operators, such as overlap-based topological density, practical. The key notion underlying these …

Data Collection And Analysis At The Atlas Detector, Savannah Thais

Yale Day of Data

No abstract provided.

Radiation Reaction: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love E&M, Alexander R. Kaufman

Summer Research

Here we present some approaches to understanding the Abraham-Lotentz-Dirac equation and their features. And a behavior found in numerical solutions to the 1-dimensional ALD in a co-moving reference frame for a single charged particle in a Coulombic field.

Neutron Decay Correlations In The Nab Experiment, L. J. Broussard, R. Alarcon, S. Baeßler, L. Barrón Palos, N. Birge, T. Bode, J. D. Bowman, T. Brunst, J. R. Calarco, J. Caylor, T. Chupp, V. Cianciolo, Christopher Crawford, G. W. Dodson, J. Dubois, W. Fan, W. Farrar, N. Fomin, E. Frlež, J. Fry, M. T. Gericke, F. Glück, G. L. Greene, R. K. Grzywacz, V. Gudkov, C. Hendrus, F. W. Hersman, T. Ito, H. Li, N. Macsai, Bradley R. Plaster, Aaron P. Sprow

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The Nab experiment will measure the correlation a between the momenta of the beta particle and antineutrino in neutron decay as well as the Fierz term b which distorts the beta spectrum.

Final Muon Cooling For A Muon Collider, John Gabriel Acosta Castillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To explore the new energy frontier, a new generation of particle accelerators is needed. Muon colliders are a promising alternative if muon cooling can be made to work. Muons are 200 times heavier than electrons, so they produce less synchrotron radiation, and they behave like point particles. However, they have a short lifetime of 2.2 μs and the beam is more difficult to cool than an electron beam. The Muon Accelerator Program (MAP) was created to develop concepts and technologies required by a muon collider. An important effort has been made in the program to design and optimize a muon …

Neutrino Oscillations And The Reno Experiment, Karla Rosita Tellez Giron Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Neutrinos are the second most common particles in the universe, after the photons. Neutrinos (and antineutrinos) exist in three different "flavors", namely, electron, tau and muon neutrinos. A physical neutrino, however, can oscillate among these three flavors and, thus, it is said to be a mix of the three flavor states. In quantum mechanics representation, it is said that the three flavor states are the mixture of the three mass states. This mixture of neutrinos can generally be parameterized by the three so-called mixing angles (&thetas;12, &thetas;23, &thetas;13), three squared mass differences Δmij 2, i, j = 1, 2, 3 …

Supergroups In Critical Dimensions And Division Algebras, Čestmir Burdik, Sultan Catto, Yasemin Gürcan, Amish Khalfan, Levent Kurt, V. Kato La

Publications and Research

We establish a link between classical heterotic strings and the groups of the magic square associated with Jordan algebras, allowing for a uniform treatment of the bosonic and superstring sectors of the heterotic string.