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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

The detection of marine microseismic activity with the CUORE tonne-scale cryogenic experiment

Vibrations from experimental setups and the environment are a persistent source of noise for low-temperature calorimeters searching for rare events, including neutrinoless double beta ( 0νββ ) decay or dark matter interactions. Such noise can significantly limit experimental sensitivity to the physics case under investigation. Here, we report the detection of marine microseismic vibrations using mK-scale calorimeters. This study employs a multi-device analysis correlating data from CUORE, the leading experiment in the search for 0νββ decay with mK-scale calorimeters, and the Copernicus Earth Observation program, revealing the seasonal impact of Mediterranean Sea activity on CUORE’s energy thresholds, resolution, and sensitivity over four years. The detection of marine microseisms underscores the need to address faint environmental noise in ultra-sensitive experiments. Understanding how such noise couples to the detector and developing mitigation strategies is essential for next-generation experiments. We demonstrate one such strategy: a noise decorrelation algorithm implemented in CUORE using auxiliary sensors, which reduces vibrational noise and improves detector performance. Enhancing sensitivity to 0νββ decay and to rare events with low-energy signatures requires identifying unresolved noise sources, advancing noise reduction methods, and improving vibration suppression systems, all of which inform the design of next-generation rare event experiments.

experimental nuclear physics↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Beamdump facility at Jefferson Lab

The potential of the intense secondary muon, neutrino, and (hypothetical) light dark matter beams at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) is explored. These are produced in the high-power dumps with high-current electron beams. Light dark matter searches with the approved Beam Dump eXperiment (BDX) are driving the realization of a new underground vault behind Hall A that could be extended to a Beamdump Facility with little additional installations. High-energy muons created via the Bethe–Heitler process uniquely do not proceed through the more common pion production and decay channels. Several possible muon physics applications are highlighted. Neutrino detector technologies and experiments suitable for a beamdump facility are outlined.

Accelerator Physics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Flexible Pilot Jobs Framework for Distributed High Throughput Computing

Experimental particle physics has been at the forefront of analyzing the world’s largest datasets for decades. The high-energy physics (HEP) community was among the first to develop suitable software and computing tools for this purpose. GlideinWMS is a Glidein-based workload management system whose purpose is to provide experiments like CMS at CERN, DUNE at Fermilab, and others, a way to access and efficiently use vast amounts of computing resources. This system wants to provide a simple way to submit jobs to a set of computing resources, that will be provided to users behind the scenes. Glideins are the pilot jobs executed on the worker nodes at the grid sites, performing operations such as hardware detection, environment setup, and error handling. After all these operations, they will launch the actual user job. Many grid sites are supported, such as shared clusters, Google CE, and AWS. My internship aimed to design and code a flexible pilot jobs framework that will replace the one used by GlideinWMS, developing a modular and flexible skeleton of the Glidein and adding further functionalities. My project also focused on the application of machine learning techniques as support to this management system.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Direct neutrino-mass measurement based on 259 days of KATRIN data

That neutrinos carry a nonvanishing rest mass is evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles. Their absolute mass holds relevance in fields from particle physics to cosmology. We report on the search for the effective electron antineutrino mass with the KATRIN experiment. KATRIN performs precision spectroscopy of the tritium β-decay close to the kinematic endpoint. On the basis of the first five measurement campaigns, we derived a best-fit value of $m^{2}_{v} = -0.14^{+0.13}_{-0.15}$ eV 2 , resulting in an upper limit of m ν < 0.45 eV at 90% confidence level. Stemming from 36 million electrons collected in 259 measurement days, a substantial reduction of the background level, and improved systematic uncertainties, this result tightens KATRIN’s previous bound by a factor of almost two.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Research in Elementary Particle Physics

The Experimental High Energy Physics group in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Louisiana State University (LSU) is composed of faculty, postdocs and students. We perform research in experimental neutrino physics at the Intensity Frontier (DUNE, ProtoDUNE and T2K). The group continues their principal research efforts on the T2K and DUNE projects to measure neutrino oscillation parameters and study neutrino properties.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Five-body systems with Bethe-Salpeter equations

We extend the Bethe-Salpeter formalism to systems made of five valence particles. Restricting ourselves to two-body interactions, we derive the subtraction terms necessary to prevent overcounting. We solve the five-body Bethe-Salpeter equation numerically for a system of five scalar particles interacting by a scalar exchange boson. To make the calculations tractable, we implement properties of the permutation group S 5 and construct an approximation based on intermediate two- and three-body poles. We extract the five-body ground and excited states along with the spectra obtained from the two-, three-, and four-body equations. In the limit of a massless exchange particle, the two-, three, four- and five-body states coexist within a certain range of the coupling strength, whereas for heavier exchange particles the five-body system becomes Borromean. Our study serves as a building block for the calculation of pentaquark properties using functional methods.

Eichmann, Gernot [Univ. of Graz (Austria)] (ORCID:↗
DOE OSTI2025

Measurement of the mean number of muons with energies above 500 GeV in air showers detected with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

We present a measurement of the mean number of muons with energies larger than 500 GeV in near-vertical extensive air showers initiated by cosmic rays with primary energies between 2.5 and 100 PeV. The measurement is based on events detected in coincidence between the surface and in-ice detectors of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Air showers are recorded on the surface by IceTop, while a bundle of high-energy muons (TeV muons) from the shower can subsequently produce a tracklike event in the IceCube in-ice array. Results are obtained assuming the hadronic interaction models Sibyll 2.1, QGSJet-II.04, and EPOS-LHC. The measured number of TeV muons is found to be in agreement with predictions from air-shower simulations. The results have also been compared to a measurement of low-energy muons by IceTop, indicating an inconsistency between the predictions for low- and high-energy muons in simulations based on the EPOS-LHC model.

Abbasi, R. [Loyola University Chicago]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Seasonal variations of the atmospheric muon neutrino spectrum measured with IceCube

This study presents an analysis of seasonal variations in the atmospheric muon neutrino flux, using 11.3 years of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. By leveraging a novel spectral unfolding method, we explore the energy range from 125 GeV to 10 TeV for zenith angles from 90° to 110°, corresponding to the Antarctic atmosphere. Our findings reveal that the differential measurement of the amplitudes of the seasonal variation is consistent with an energy-dependent decrease reaching (-4.5 ± 1.2)% during Austral winter and increase to (+ 3.9 ± 1.3)% during Austral summer relative to the annual average at 10 TeV. While the unfolded flux exceeds the model predictions by up to 30%, the differential measurement of the seasonal to annual average flux remains unaffected. The measured seasonal variations of the muon neutrino spectrum are consistent with theoretical predictions using the MCEq code and the NRLMSISE-00 atmospheric model.

Astroparticle Physics and High-Energy Cosmic Pheno↗
DOE OSTI2025

Deciphering spin-parity assignments of nuclear levels

Spin-parity assignments of nuclear levels are critical for understanding nuclear structure and reactions. However, inconsistent notation conventions and ambiguous reporting in research papers often lead to confusion and misinterpretations. Here, this paper examines the policies of the Evaluated Nuclear Structure Data File (ENSDF) and the evaluations by Endt and collaborators, highlighting key differences in their approaches to spin-parity notation. Sources of confusion are identified, including ambiguous use of strong and weak arguments and the conflation of new experimental results with prior constraints. Recommendations are provided to improve clarity and consistency in reporting spin-parity assignments, emphasizing the need for explicit notation conventions, clear differentiation of argument strengths, community education, and separate reporting of new findings. These steps aim to enhance the accuracy and utility of nuclear data for both researchers and evaluators.

Experimental Nuclear Physics↗
DOE OSTI2025

The critical importance of software for HEP

Particle physics has an ambitious and broad global experimental programme for the coming decades. Large investments in building new facilities are already underway or under consideration. Scaling the present processing power and data storage needs by the foreseen increase in data rates in the next decade for HL-LHC is not sustainable within the current budgets. As a result, a more efficient usage of computing resources is required in order to realise the physics potential of future experiments. Software and computing are an integral part of experimental design, trigger and data acquisition, simulation, reconstruction, and analysis, as well as related theoretical predictions. A significant investment in computing and software is therefore critical. Advances in software and computing, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), will be key for solving these challenges. Making better use of new processing hardware such as graphical processing units (GPUs) or ARM chips is a growing trend. This forms part of a computing solution that makes efficient use of facilities and contributes to the reduction of the environmental footprint of HEP computing. The HEP community already provided a roadmap for software and computing for the last EPPSU, and this paper updates that, with a focus on the most resource critical parts of our data processing chain.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Energy Spectrum of Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Rays across Declinations -90° to +44.8° as Measured at the Pierre Auger Observatory

The energy spectrum of cosmic rays above 2.5 EeV has been measured across the declination range - 9 0 ° ≤ δ ≤ + 44.8 ° using ∼ 310 000 events accrued at the Pierre Auger Observatory from an exposure of ( 104 900 ± 3 100 ) km 2 sr yr . No significant variations of energy spectra with declination are observed, after allowing or not for nonuniformities across the sky arising from the well-established dipolar anisotropies in the arrival directions of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Here, the instep feature in the spectrum at ≃ 10 EeV reported previously is now established at a significance above 5 σ . Within the statistics, the energy spectra are indistinguishable across declinations so disfavoring an origin for the instep from a few distinctive sources.

Abdul Halim, A. [University of Adelaide]↗
DOE OSTI2025

A precise measurement of the jet energy scale derived from single-particle measurements and in situ techniques in proton–proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The jet energy calibration and its uncertainties are derived from measurements of the calorimeter response to single particles in both data and Monte Carlo simulation using proton–proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV collected with the ATLAS detector during Run 2 at the Large Hadron Collider. The jet calibration uncertainty for anti-$k_T$ jets with a jet radius parameter of R$_\textrm{jet} = 0.4$ and in the central jet rapidity region is about 2.5% for transverse momenta ($p_{\text {T}}$) of 20 $\text {GeV}$ , about 0.5% for $p_{\text {T}} = 300$ GeV and 0.7% for $p_{\text {T}} = 4$ TeV . Excellent agreement is found with earlier determinations obtained from -balance based in situ methods ($Z/\gamma$ +jets). The combination of these two independent methods results in the most precise jet energy measurement achieved so far with the ATLAS detector with a relative uncertainty of 0.3% at $p_\textrm{T} = 300$ GeV and 0.6% at 4 TeV. The jet energy calibration is also derived with the single-particle calorimeter response measurements separately for quark- and gluon-induced jets and furthermore for jets with R jet varying from 0.2 to 1.0 retaining the correlations between these measurements. Differences between inclusive jets and jets from boosted top-quark decays, with and without grooming the soft jet constituents, are also studied.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

A stress-induced source of phonon bursts and quasiparticle poisoning

Abstract The performance of superconducting qubits is degraded by a poorly characterized set of energy sources breaking the Cooper pairs responsible for superconductivity, creating a condition often called “quasiparticle poisoning”. Both superconducting qubits and low threshold dark matter calorimeters have observed excess bursts of quasiparticles or phonons that decrease in rate with time. Here, we show that a silicon crystal glued to its holder exhibits a rate of low-energy phonon events that is more than two orders of magnitude larger than in a functionally identical crystal suspended from its holder in a low-stress state. The excess phonon event rate in the glued crystal decreases with time since cooldown, consistent with a source of phonon bursts which contributes to quasiparticle poisoning in quantum circuits and the low-energy events observed in cryogenic calorimeters. We argue that relaxation of thermally induced stress between the glue and crystal is the source of these events.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Search for light sterile neutrinos with two neutrino beams at MicroBooNE

The existence of three distinct neutrino flavours, ν e , ν μ and ν τ , is a central tenet of the Standard Model of particle physics. Quantum-mechanical interference can allow a neutrino of one initial flavour to be detected sometime later as a different flavour, a process called neutrino oscillation. Several anomalous observations inconsistent with this three-flavour picture have motivated the hypothesis that an additional neutrino state exists, which does not interact directly with matter, termed as ‘sterile’ neutrino, ν s . This includes anomalous observations from the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND)3 experiment and Mini-Booster Neutrino Experiment (MiniBooNE), consistent with ν μ → ν e transitions at a distance inconsistent with the three-neutrino picture. Here we use data obtained from the MicroBooNE liquid-argon time projection chamber in two accelerator neutrino beams to exclude the single light sterile neutrino interpretation of the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies at the 95% confidence level (CL). Moreover, we rule out a notable portion of the parameter space that could explain the gallium anomaly. This is one of the first measurements to use two accelerator neutrino beams to break a degeneracy between ν e appearance and disappearance, which would otherwise weaken the sensitivity to the sterile neutrino hypothesis. We find no evidence for either ν μ → ν e flavour transitions or ν e disappearance that would indicate non-standard flavour oscillations. Our results indicate that previous anomalous observations consistent with ν μ → ν e transitions cannot be explained by introducing a single sterile neutrino state.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Four ppm measurement of the antihydrogen ground-state hyperfine splitting

The hydrogen atom is a touchstone for the foundations, evolution and frontiers of quantum theory. Key spectral lines of this atom have been determined to remarkable precision. Our research focuses on the study of antihydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. We test fundamental symmetries of nature (such as simultaneous charge conjugation, parity inversion, and time reversal or CPT symmetry) through precision comparisons of these atomic systems. Recent 1S–2S spectroscopic measurements on trapped antihydrogen have achieved relative precisions of parts per trillion. However, the ground-state hyperfine splitting, which is sensitive to the internal structure of the antiproton, has only been measured to 400 parts per million (ppm). Here we report a 4 ppm measurement of the antihydrogen ground-state hyperfine splitting energy a 1S , advancing the state-of-the-art precision by two orders of magnitude. From microwave spectroscopy experiments with roughly 24,000 anti-atoms, we determine ${a}_{1{\rm{S}}}/h=\mathrm{1,420,404.8}\pm 1.1(\mathrm{stat.})\pm 5.6\,(\mathrm{sys.})\,\text{kHz}$ in a 1-T magnetic field, consistent with expectations for hydrogen. At this level, our measurement is sensitive to the internal structure of the antiproton, which contributes at about 40 ppm and is approaching the limit of existing theoretical analyses. The gains we report are the product of marked advances in magnetic trap field control, stabilization and characterization; anti-atom spin-state manipulation; and improved antihydrogen accumulation rate.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Precise measurements of W - and Z -boson transverse momentum spectra with the ATLAS detector using pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 5.02$ TeV and 13 TeV

This paper describes measurements of the transverse momentum spectra of W and Z bosons produced in proton–proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.02 TeV and $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Measurements are performed in the electron and muon channels, W → $\ell$$v$ and Z → $\ell$$\ell$ ($\ell$ = e or μ), and for W events further separated by charge. The data were collected in 2017 and 2018, in dedicated runs with reduced instantaneous luminosity, and correspond to 255 and 338 pb -1 at $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.02 TeV and 13 TeV, respectively. These conditions optimise the reconstruction of the W-boson transverse momentum. The distributions observed in the electron and muon channels are unfolded, combined, and compared to QCD calculations based on parton shower Monte Carlo event generators and analytical resummation. The description of the transverse momentum distributions by Monte Carlo event generators is imperfect and shows significant differences largely common to W - , W + and Z production. The agreement is better at $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.02 TeV, especially for predictions that were tuned to Z production data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV. Higher-order, resummed predictions based on DYTurbo generally match the data best across the spectra. Distribution ratios are also presented and test the understanding of differences between the production processes.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Evidence for a Spectral Break or Curvature in the Spectrum of Astrophysical Neutrinos from 5 TeV to 10 PeV

Here, we report improved measurements of the all flavor astrophysical neutrino spectrum with IceCube by combining complementary neutrino samples in two independent analyses. Both analyses show evidence of a harder spectrum at energies below ∼ 30 TeV compared to higher energies where the spectrum is well characterized by a power law. The spectrum is better described by a log parabola or a broken power law, the latter being the preferred model. Both, however, reject a single power law over an energy range 5 TeV–10 PeV with a significance > 4⁢𝜎, providing new constraints on properties of cosmic neutrino sources.

Abbasi, R. [Loyola University Chicago] (ORCID:0000↗
DOE OSTI2025

Semi-supervised permutation invariant particle-level anomaly detection

The development of analysis methods to distinguish potential beyond the Standard Model phenomena in a model-agnostic way can significantly enhance the discovery reach in collider experiments. However, the typical machine learning (ML) algorithms employed for this task require fixed length and ordered inputs that break the natural permutation invariance in collision events. To address this, a semi-supervised anomaly detection tool is presented that takes a variable number of particle-level inputs and leverages a signal model to encode this information into a permutation invariant, event-level representation via supervised training with a Particle Flow Network (PFN). Data events are then encoded into this representation and given as input to an autoencoder for unsupervised ANomaly deTEction on particLe flOw latent sPacE (ANTELOPE), classifying anomalous events based on a low-level and permutation invariant input modeling. Performance of the ANTELOPE architecture is evaluated on simulated samples of hadronic processes in a high energy collider experiment, showing good capability to distinguish disparate models of new physics.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗