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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 361 records · Page 20
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

DIREXENO—an apparatus for measuring correlated scintillation signatures in liquid xenon

We present a detector apparatus, DIREXENO (DIREctional XENOn), designed to measure the spatial and temporal properties of scintillation in liquid xenon to very high accuracy. The properties of scintillation are of primary importance for dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay experiments; however the complicated microphysics involved limits theoretical predictions. We will explore the possibility that scintillation emission exhibits spatial correlations such as super-radiance which manifests in temporal and spatial structure, depending on the interaction type. Such properties of scintillation light may open a new window for background rejection as well as directionality measurements. We present the apparatus' technical design and the concepts driving it. We demonstrate that for an energy deposition of ~2.5 keV (~7.5 keV) electron (nuclear) recoil the detector is sensitive to an anisotropy fraction of as little as ~ 20% of the total photons emitted over a solid angle of ~0.85 steradian or less. We show results from commissioning runs in which the detector operated with 17 PMTs for over 44 days in stable conditions. The time resolution for individual photons in different PMTs was measured to be ≲1.4 ns full-width at half-maximum

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Production and validation of scintillating structural components from low-background Poly(ethylene naphthalate)

Poly Ethylene Naphthalate (PEN) is an industrial polymer plastic which is investigated as a low background, transparent, scintillating and wavelength shifting structural material. PEN scintillates in the blue region and has excellent mechanical properties both at room and cryogenic temperatures. Thus, it is an ideal candidate for active structural components in experiments for the search of rare events like neutrinoless double-beta decay or dark matter recoils. Such optically active structures improve the identification and rejection efficiency of backgrounds events, like this improving the sensitivity of experiments. This paper reports on the production of radiopure and transparent PEN plates These structures can be used to mount germanium detectors operating in cryogenic liquids (LAr, LN). Thus, as first application PEN holders will be used to mount the Ge detectors in the LEGEND-200 experiment. The whole process from cleaning the raw material to testing the PEN active components under final operational conditions is reported.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

A direct test of Auger cascade induced nucleation from heavy element contamination in C 3 F 8 bubble chambers

Understanding and quantifying the gamma-induced bubble nucleation background in clean nuclear recoil detection bubble chambers is of utmost importance to bubble chamber based dark matter searches. Here, we present data confirming the hypothesis that large Auger cascades from high-Z elements such as iodine and xenon dramatically increase the response of C 3 F 8 bubble chambers to gamma rays. These tests, performed with a small calibration bubble chamber filled with C 3 F 8 +$\mathcal{O}$ (10) ppm xenon, show that the probability of bubble nucleation scales with the rate of xenon inner-shell vacancies, reaching values >10% per K-Shell vacancy for Seitz thresholds of interest to future dark matter searches in bubble chambers. We also place an upper limit on bubble nucleation probability for argon Auger events, relevant to large future bubble chambers which may contain some residual atmospheric argon after the active fluid fill.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Studies in pulse shape discrimination for an optimized ASIC design

The continued advancements of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) have made them viable photosensors for low recoil energy Pulse Shape Discrimination (PSD) between fast neutron and gamma interactions when coupled to an appropriate scintillator. At the same time, the large number of channels in a typical array calls for the development of low-cost and low-power electronics. A custom integrated circuit (ASIC) is an ideal solution for this purpose. To assess the requirements for such an ASIC, studies were performed using two scintillators, Stilbene and EJ-276, coupled to a 6 x 6 mm SiPM from Onsemi. We demonstrate that both scintillators are viable for performing PSD for interaction energies from 100 keV to several MeV while optimizing the integration periods used in the PSD metric. These measurements inform the design parameters of the ASIC under development.

Si-PMTs↗
DOE OSTI2023

Design and characterization of AmLi neutron sources for the LZ experiment

In this paper we describe the development, testing, and characterization of three low-emission rate AmLi neutron sources. The sources are used to calibrate the nuclear recoil response of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter experiment. Furthermore, the sources' neutron emission rate was measured using 3He proportional tubes. The sources' gamma emissions were characterized using a high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector. Source-validated Geant4Monte Carlo simulations allowed to calibrate the Ge and neutron detectors' responses.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

The design, implementation, and performance of the LZ calibration systems

LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a tonne-scale experiment searching for direct dark matter interactions and other rare events. It is located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota, USA. The core of the LZ detector is a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC), designed with the primary goal of detecting Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) via their induced low energy nuclear recoils. Surrounding the TPC, two veto detectors immersed in an ultra-pure water tank enable reducing background events to enhance the discovery potential. Intricate calibration systems are purposely designed to precisely understand the responses of these three detector volumes to various types of particle interactions and to demonstrate LZ's ability to discriminate between signals and backgrounds. In this paper, we present a comprehensive discussion of the key features, requirements, and performance of the LZ calibration systems, which play a crucial role in enabling LZ's WIMP-search and its broad science program. The thorough description of these calibration systems, with an emphasis on their novel aspects, is valuable for future calibration efforts in direct dark matter and other rare-event search experiments.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2026

Upgrades to the TRIUMF Fast Ion Counter, TRIFIC

TRIFIC, the TRIUMF Fast Ion Counter, is a downstream ionization chamber which provides beam composition monitoring and recoil tagging for in-beam reaction experiments. TRIFIC has been commissioned and deployed for use with radioactive isotope beams at the TRIUMF-ISAC facility. Recently, the detector has been upgraded to include an improved gas window that can accommodate higher beam rates and position-sensitive electrode grids for better position reconstruction.

Gaseous detectors↗
DOE OSTI2024

Deep probabilistic direction prediction in 3D with applications to directional dark matter detectors

Abstract We present the first method to probabilistically predict 3D direction in a deep neural network model. The probabilistic predictions are modeled as a heteroscedastic von Mises-Fisher distribution on the sphere S 2 , giving a simple way to quantify aleatoric uncertainty. This approach generalizes the cosine distance loss which is a special case of our loss function when the uncertainty is assumed to be uniform across samples. We develop approximations required to make the likelihood function and gradient calculations stable. The method is applied to the task of predicting the 3D directions of electrons, the most complex signal in a class of experimental particle physics detectors designed to demonstrate the particle nature of dark matter and study solar neutrinos. Using simulated Monte Carlo data, the initial direction of recoiling electrons is inferred from their tortuous trajectories, as captured by the 3D detectors. For 40 keV electrons in a 70% He 30% CO 2 gas mixture at STP, the new approach achieves a mean cosine distance of 0.104 (26 ∘ ) compared to 0.556 (64 ∘ ) achieved by a non-machine learning algorithm. We show that the model is well-calibrated and accuracy can be increased further by removing samples with high predicted uncertainty. This advancement in probabilistic 3D directional learning could increase the sensitivity of directional dark matter detectors.

Computer Science↗
DOE OSTI2025

Spin-dependent scattering of sub-GeV dark matter: Models and constraints

We calculate the scattering rate of sub-GeV dark matter in solid-state targets for spin-dependent dark matter–nucleon interactions. For dark matter particles with mass below 100 MeV, the scattering occurs predominantly through incoherent phonon production. For dark matter heavier than 100 MeV, we match onto the nuclear recoil calculation. To compare the sensitivity of future direct detection experiments with existing constraints, we consider three models with interactions that are mediated by spin-0 or spin-1 particles. This allows us to derive bounds on the cross section from searches for the mediating particle, including bounds from stellar cooling, beam dump experiments, meson factories, and dark matter self-interactions. The existing bounds are very stringent, though for 𝑚 𝜒 ≳100 MeV there is parameter space, which may be accessible with direct detection, depending on the exposure and background rates.

Gori, Stefania [University of California, Santa Cr↗
DOE OSTI2025

Properties of states near 𝐸 𝑥 = 6 MeV in 18 Ne through 17 F +𝑝 scattering

The rate of energy production in the hot-CNO cycle and breakout to the rapid-proton capture process in Type I X-ray bursts is strongly related to the 14 O⁡(𝛼,𝑝)⁢ 17 F reaction rate. The properties of states in 18 Ne near 𝐸 𝑥 = 6.1–6.3 MeV are important for understanding the 14 O⁡(𝛼,𝑝)⁢ 17 F reaction rate. In order to study 18 Ne resonances around this energy region, the RESOLUT radioactive-ion beam facility at Florida State University was used to perform 17 F⁡(𝑝,𝑝)⁢ 17 F elastic scattering on a polypropylene target under inverse kinematics. Scattered protons were detected in a silicon-strip detector array while recoiling 17 F ions were detected in coincidence in a gas ionization detector. An 𝑅-matrix analysis of measured cross sections was conducted along with a reanalysis of data from previous 17 F +𝑝 measurements. All the data analyzed are well described by a consistent set of parameters with a 1 − assignment for a state at 6.14(1) MeV. A second comparable solution is also found with a 3 − assignment for the 6.14(1) MeV state. There is no conclusive evidence supporting one of the two solutions over the other. The rates of the 14 O⁡(𝛼,p)⁢ 17 F reaction that are determined from the two solutions differ by up to an order of magnitude.

6 ≤ A ≤ 19↗
DOE OSTI2026

Simplified spin dependence in dark matter direct detection

The interactions of dark matter with Standard Model particles can be systematically studied in the language of effective field theories. We investigate dark matter interactions with Standard Model particles, including spin-dependent interactions, for direct detection experiments and demonstrate that, although the scattering rate generally depends on multiple types of material response functions, certain linear combinations of these material response functions vanish if the initial and final electronic states share the same Hamiltonian. We also find that several other response functions vanish in parity-symmetric materials, making these systems as simple as isotropic detectors in some respects. Finally, we present the scattering rate for an anisotropic, possibly chiral detector, for generic dark matter-electron spin interactions. These relations reduce the number of independent response functions needed, thereby simplifying the computational complexity for a broad class of dark matter models. Our results provide a complete and efficient toolkit for analyzing electron recoil signals in diverse detector materials.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Search for 𝛾⁢𝐻 production and constraints on the Yukawa couplings of light quarks to the Higgs boson

A search for 𝛾⁢𝐻 production is performed with data from the CMS experiment at the LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb −1 at a proton-proton center-of-mass collision energy of 13 TeV. The analysis focuses on the topology of a boosted Higgs boson recoiling against a high-energy photon. The final states of 𝐻 → $b\bar{b}$ and 𝐻 → 4⁢ℓ are analyzed. This study examines effective 𝐻⁡𝑍⁢𝛾 and 𝐻⁡𝛾⁢𝛾 anomalous couplings within the context of an effective field theory. In this approach, the production cross section is constrained to be 𝜎 𝛾⁢𝐻 < 16.4 fb at 95% confidence level (CL). Simultaneous constraints on four anomalous couplings involving 𝐻⁡𝑍⁢𝛾 and 𝐻⁡𝛾⁢𝛾 are provided. Additionally, the production rate for 𝐻 → 4⁢ℓ is examined to assess potential enhancements in the Yukawa couplings between light quarks and the Higgs boson. Assuming the standard model values for the Yukawa couplings of the bottom and top quarks, the following simultaneous constraints are obtained: 𝜅 𝑢 =(0.0 ± 1.5) ×10 3 , 𝜅 𝑑 = (0.0$^{+6.7}_{−6.8}$) × 10 2 , 𝜅 𝑠 = 0$^{+30}_{−32}$, and 𝜅 𝑐 =0.0$^{+2.3}_{−2.8}$. This rules out the hypothesis that up- or down-type quarks in the first or second generation have the same Yukawa couplings as those in the third generation, with a CL greater than 95%.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

High energy particle production from proton synchrotron radiation in strong magnetic fields in relativistic quantum field theory

We investigate photon, pion, and 𝜌-meson production from proton synchrotron radiation in the presence of strong magnetic fields. The proton decay widths and the luminosities of the emitted particles are calculated within a relativistic quantum framework that incorporates Landau quantization. A scaling rule is derived for the transition probability between different Landau levels. This allows an evaluation of transitions for extremely high Landau numbers exceeding 10 15 . Furthermore, we calculate the momentum distribution of the emitted particles by properly including the proton recoil effect associated with particle emission. The results differ significantly from conventional semiclassical approaches.

Cosmic ray sources↗
DOE OSTI2025

General search for supersymmetric particles in scenarios with compressed mass spectra using proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

A general search is presented for supersymmetric particles (sparticles) in scenarios featuring compressed mass spectra using proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC. The analyzed data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb −1 . A wide range of potential sparticle signatures are targeted, including pair production of electroweakinos, sleptons, and top squarks. The search focuses on events with a high transverse momentum system from initial-state-radiation jets recoiling against a potential sparticle system with significant missing transverse momentum. Events are categorized based on their lepton multiplicity, jet multiplicity, number of 𝑏-tagged jets, and kinematic variables sensitive to the sparticle masses and mass splittings. The sensitivity extends to higher parent sparticle masses than previously probed at the LHC for production of pairs of electroweakinos, sleptons, and top squarks with mass spectra featuring small mass splittings (compressed mass spectra). The observed results demonstrate agreement with the predictions of the background-only model. Lower mass limits are set at 95% confidence level on production of pairs of electroweakinos, sleptons, and top squarks that extend to 325, 275, and 780 GeV, respectively, for the most favorable compressed mass regime cases.

Hadron colliders↗
DOE OSTI2025

Analysis of Σ* via isospin selective reaction 𝐾 𝐿 ⁢𝑝 →𝜋 + ⁢Σ 0

The isospin-selective reaction 𝐾 𝐿 ⁢𝑝 →𝜋 + ⁢Σ 0 provides a clean probe for investigating 𝐼 =1 Σ* resonances. In this work, we perform an analysis of this reaction using an effective Lagrangian approach for the first time, incorporating the well-established Σ⁡(1189)⁢1/2 + , Σ⁡(1385)⁢3/2 + , Σ⁡(1670)⁢3/2 − , and Σ⁡(1775)⁢5/2 − states, while also exploring contributions from other unestablished states. By fitting the available differential cross-section and recoil polarization data, adhering to partial-wave phase conventions same as the Particle Data Group, we find that besides the established resonances, contributions from Σ⁡(1660)⁢1/2 + , Σ⁡(1580)⁢3/2 − , and a Σ*⁢(1/2 − ) improve the description. Notably, a Σ*⁢(1/2 − ) resonance with mass around 1.54 GeV, consistent with Σ⁡(1620)⁢1/2 − , is found to be essential for describing the data in this channel, a stronger indication than found in previous analyses focusing on 𝜋⁢Λ final states. While providing complementary support for Σ⁡(1660)⁢1/2 + and Σ⁡(1580)⁢3/2 − , our results highlight the importance of the Σ⁡(1620)⁢1/2 − region in 𝐾 𝐿 ⁢𝑝 →𝜋 + ⁢Σ 0 . Future high-precision measurements are needed to solidify these findings and further constrain the Σ* spectrum.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Intrinsic nonlocality of spin- and polarization-resolved probabilities in strong-field quantum electrodynamics

Spin and polarization are central to precision tests of fundamental physics and for interpreting radiation from astrophysical sources and ultraintense laser-matter experiments. Here, focusing on the fundamental process of nonlinear Compton scattering, we demonstrate that a key assumption underlying current strong-field quantum electrodynamics models, i.e., that emission can be treated as an instantaneous random event sampled from a local differential rate, is inconsistent once emission angles, electron spin, and/or photon polarization are resolved. Namely, even in strictly constant and uniform fields , the resulting fully differential distribution is sign indefinite, yielding negative inferred probabilities. The physical reason is that the photon emission probability builds up over a finite length of the electron trajectory, the formation region, during which the electron direction changes by roughly the same small angle that defines the radiation cone. Therefore, we put forward a new method where we integrate over this formation region analytically to obtain a physically consistent electron spin and photon polarization model. We show that the implementation of our model is compatible with existing Monte Carlo and particle-in-cell workflows. Simulations of a GeV-class electron-laser collision accessible at current petawatt facilities and of emission in a pulsarlike magnetic field are shown to reveal spin and polarization patterns that differ even qualitatively from state-of-the-art local models. In particular, our new model predicts substantial angle-dependent circular photon polarization where the well-known collinear-emission approach yields none, and a pronounced helicity bias in the recoiling electrons absent from current predictions. These findings have direct implications for upcoming strong-field QED experiments and for interpreting polarized radiation from extreme astrophysical environments.

astrophysical electromagnetic fields↗
DOE OSTI2025

Measurement of 𝐵 + →𝜏 + ⁢𝜈 𝜏 branching fraction with a hadronic tagging method at Belle II

We present a measurement of the branching fraction of 𝐵 + →𝜏 + ⁢𝜈 𝜏 decays using 387±6×10 6 ϒ⁡(4⁢𝑆) collected between 2019 and 2022 with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB 𝑒 + ⁢𝑒 − collider. We reconstruct the accompanying 𝐵 − meson using the hadronic tagging method, while 𝐵 + →𝜏 + ⁢𝜈 𝜏 candidates are identified in the recoil. We find evidence for 𝐵 + →𝜏 + ⁢𝜈 𝜏 decays at 3.0 standard deviations, including systematic uncertainties. The measured branching fraction is ℬ⁡(𝐵 + →𝜏 + ⁢𝜈 𝜏 )=[1.24±0.41⁢(stat)±0.19⁢(syst)]×10 −4 .

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

New thermal-relic targets for sub-GeV dark matter direct detection

Dark matter direct detection experiments involving electron recoils are beginning to test highly predictive, thermal-relic milestones for sub-GeV dark matter models. Due to the Lee-Weinberg bound, thermal dark matter candidates in this mass range necessarily require comparably light mediator particles to achieve a suitably large annihilation cross section. Here we present new thermal-relic milestones for sub-GeV dark matter candidates that couple to vector mediators. In these models, the mediators are massive gauge bosons of anomaly-free Abelian extensions to the Standard Model, including the dark photon, gauged L i - L j , B - L , and B - 3 L i models, where B is the baryon number, L is the lepton number, and i , j index the lepton families. Since the same interactions that govern cosmological production also govern electron scattering, the targets we present are firmly predictive and allow for these models to be robustly discovered or falsified. Furthermore, since the mediators we study exhaust the minimal anomaly-free U(1) extensions to the Standard Model, our results offer a complete list of predictive milestones for sub-GeV dark matter coupled to vector mediators.

Han, Xu [Chicago U.] (ORCID:0009000821607836)↗