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Novel magnetic helical channel designs for capture and cooling of bright muon beams are being developed using numerical simulations based on new inventions such as helical solenoid (HS) magnets and hydrogen-pressurized RF (HPRF) cavities. We are close to the factor of a million six-dimensional phase space (6D) reduction needed for muon colliders. Recent experimental and simulation results are presented.
Muon cooling requires high-gradient normal conducting cavities operating in multi-Tesla magnetic fields for muon beam focusing in an ionization cooling channel. Recent experience with an 805-MHz pillbox cavity at the Fermilab MuCool Test Area has shown a significant drop in accelerating field performance for the case of parallel electric and magnetic fields. It has been suggested that having the magnetic field perpendicular to the electric field should provide magnetic insulation and suppress breakdown. An 805-MHz Cu rectangular box cavity was built for testing with the fields perpendicular. It was mounted on an adjustable support to vary the angle between the rf electric and external magnetic field. We report on the design and initial operation of the rectangular box cavity.
Cosmic rays interacting with the Earth's atmosphere generate extensive air showers, which produce Cherenkov, fluorescence and radio emissions. These emissions are key signatures for detection by ground-based, sub-orbital, and satellite-based telescopes aiming to study high energy cosmic ray and neutrino events. However, detectors operating at ground and balloon altitudes are also exposed to a background of atmospheric charged particles, primarily pions, kaons, and muons, that can mimic or obscure the signals from astrophysical sources. In this work, we use coupled cascade equations to calculate the atmospheric pion, kaon and muon fluxes reaching detectors at various altitudes. Our analysis focuses on energies above 10 GeV, where the influence of the Earth's magnetic field on particle trajectories is minimal. We provide angular and energy-resolved flux estimates and discuss their relevance as background for extensive air shower detection. Furthermore, our results are potentially relevant for interpreting data from current and future balloon-borne experiments such as EUSO-SPB2 and for refining trigger and veto strategies in Cherenkov and fluorescence telescopes.
In this study, prototype scintilator+WLS strips with SiPM readout for a muon system at future colliders were tested for light yield, time resolution and position resolution. Depending on the configuration, light yield of up to 36 photoelectrons per muon per SiPM has been observed, as well as time resolution of 0.45 ns and position resolution along the strip of 7.7 cm.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the High Luminosity (HL-LHC) era will be upgraded to deliver instantaneous luminosities up to 5 X 10 34 cm -2 s -1 , five times more than the original design value. In order to maintain performance of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment under these conditions, ME0 is one of the new muon detectors to be added, along with GE1/1, GE2/1, RE3/1 and RE4/1. ME0 uses the triple Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) technology and is designed to cover the far-forward region of 2.0 < |η| < 2.8. Further, the readout electronics for ME0 must be designed to deal with high data rates and be sufficiently radiation hard to operate very close to the beamline. The design and development status of the readout electronics for ME0 are presented, along with recent results from integration tests performed using the latest electronics prototypes with GEM chambers.
The production of muons from heavy flavor decays is measured at forward rapidity in proton-proton collisions at {radical}s = 7 TeV collected with the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The analysis is carried out on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity L{sub int} = 16.5 nb{sup -1}. The transverse momentum and rapidity differential production cross sections of muons from heavy flavour decays are measured in the rapidity range 2.5 < y < 4, over the transverse momentum range 2 < p{sub t} < 12 GeV/c. The results are compared to predictions based on perturbative QCD calculations.
The new muon g-2 collaboration has proposed a measurement at Fermilab of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon to a precision of 0.14 ppm, a fourfold improvement over the Brookhaven E821 result. The latter deviates by more than 3 standard deviations from Standard Model predictions. A more precise result allows a stronger test of the Standard Model, and is more sensitive to standard model extensions predicting new contributions to the anomaly. The new experiment, which will relocate the storage ring from Brookhaven to Fermilab, and the techniques to reduce statistical uncertainties by more than a factor four, and systematic uncertainties by a factor of three, will be described.
The ScIDEP Collaboration is constructing muon telescopes based on scintillator technology to investigate the internal structure of the Egyptian Pyramid of Khafre at Giza near Cairo using cosmic-ray muons. The collaboration aims to scan the pyramid from multiple viewpoints, both inside the king’s burial chamber that is located centrally at the base of the pyramid, and outside of the pyramid, to potentially identify any new internal structures. An overview of the project is presented, including the development of the data-acquisition system, the simulation framework, and very first detector studies.
Many models of ultra-high energy cosmic-ray production involve acceleration in linear accelerators located in gamma-ray bursts, magnetars, or other sources. These transient sources have short lifetimes, which necessitate very high accelerating gradients, up to 10{sup 13} keV cm{sup –1}. At gradients above 1.6 keV cm{sup –1}, muons produced by hadronic interactions undergo significant acceleration before they decay. This muon acceleration hardens the neutrino energy spectrum and greatly increases the high-energy neutrino flux. Using the IceCube high-energy diffuse neutrino flux limits, we set two-dimensional limits on the source opacity and matter density, as a function of accelerating gradient. These limits put strong constraints on different models of particle acceleration, particularly those based on plasma wake-field acceleration, and limit models for sources like gamma-ray bursts and magnetars.
We present the results of muon-spin relaxation (mu+SR) measurements on antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic spin chains. In antiferromagnetic CuF2(pyz) we identify a transition to long range magnetic order taking place at T-N = 0.6(1) K, allowing us to estimate a ratio with the intrachain exchange of T-N/vertical bar J vertical bar approximate to 0.1 and the ratio of interchain to intrachain exchange coupling as vertical bar J'/J vertical bar approximate to 0.05. The ferromagnetic chain [Sm(hfac)(3)(boaDTDA)](n) undergoes an ordering transition at T-c = 2.8(1) K, seen via a broad freezing of dynamic fluctuations on the muon (microsecond) timescale and implying T-c/vertical bar J vertical bar approximate to 0.6. The ordered radical moment continues to fluctuate on this timescale down to 0.3 K, while the Sm moments remain disordered. In contrast, the radical spins in [La(hfac)(3)(boaDTDA)](n) remain magnetically disordered down to T = 0.1 K suggesting T-c/vertical bar J vertical bar < 0.17.
The study of the distintive signatures of the ultra high energy events recently seen by IceCube [1-4] can allow to single the neutrino origin out. The detection of tau neutrinos would be a clear way to prove that they come from cosmic distances, but at the highest energies currently seen, about 1 PeV, an experimental characterization of tau events is difficult. The study of the fraction of the muon tracks seems more promising. In fact, for any initial composition, because of the occurrence of flavor oscillations and despite their uncertainties, the fraction of muon tracks in the cosmic neutrinos is smaller than the one of atmospheric neutrinos, even hypothesizing an arbitrarily large contribution from charmed mesons. A good understanding of the detection efficiencies and the optimization of the analysis cuts, along with a reasonable increase in the statistics, should provide us with a significant test of the cosmic origin of these events.
A neutrino factory or muon collider requires the capture and cooling of a large number of muons. Scenarios for capture, bunching, phase-energy rotation and initial cooling of μ’s produced from a proton source target have been developed, initially for neutrino factory scenarios. They require a drift section from the target, a bunching section and a Φ-δE rotation section leading into the cooling channel. Important concerns are rf limitations within the focusing magnetic fields and large losses in the transport. The currently preferred cooling channel design is an “HFOFO Snake” configuration that cools both μ + and μ - transversely and longitudinally. Finally, the status of the design is presented and variations are discussed.
A new small-diameter Monitored Drift Tube (sMDT) chamber has been developed for the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS experiment to handle the higher collision rates expected at the CERN High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). This paper presents measurements of the tracking resolution and hit efficiency of two prototype sMDT chambers constructed at the University of Michigan. Using cosmic-ray muons the sMDT tracking resolution of 103.7 ± 8.1 μm was measured for one chamber and 101.8 ± 7.8 μm for the other, compared with a design resolution of 106 μm. A further tracking resolution improvement to 83.4 ± 7.8 μm was obtained by using new high-gain readout electronics which will be added for HL-LHC. An average tracking efficiency of (98.5 ± 0.2)% was found for both chambers. The methodology used to determine the detector tracking resolution and efficiency, including reconstruction of sMDT data and a Geant4 simulation of the test chamber, is presented in detail.
Muon-induced fission could be utilized as a probe to study the underlying dynamics of nuclear fission. Here, the probability of muon attachment to the light asymmetric fission fragment is sensitive to fission dynamics, such as the timescale and friction of the fission event, charge asymmetry, and possibly the shape of the fission fragments. We focus on muonic atoms that are formed with actinide nuclei. A relativistic approach is employed, solving the Dirac equation for the muonic wave function in the presence of a time-dependent electromagnetic field generated by the fissioning nucleus. Computations are carried out on a three-dimensional Cartesian lattice with no symmetry assumptions. The results show a strong dependence of the attachment probability on the fission charge asymmetry and a more modest dependence on friction.
We report temperature- and magnetic field-dependent bulk muon spin rotation measurements in a c-axis-oriented superconductor CaC{sub 6} in the mixed state. Using both a simple second-moment analysis and the more precise analytical Ginzburg-Landau model, we obtained a field-independent in-plane magnetic penetration depth {lambda}{sub ab}(0)=72(3) nm. The temperature dependencies of the normalized muon spin relaxation rate and of the normalized superfluid density result to be identical and both are well represented by the clean limit BCS model with 2{Delta}/k{sub B}T{sub c} = 3.6(1), suggesting that CaC{sub 6} is a fully gapped BCS superconductor in the clean limit regime.
We present a muon-spin relaxation study of local magnetism in the molecule-based metamagnet [Ru2(O2CMe)4]3[Cr(CN)6]. We observe magnetic order with TN = 33 K, although above 25 K the sublattice spins become less rigid and a degree of static magnetic disorder is observed. The comparison of measurements in applied magnetic field with simulations allows us to understand the origin of the muon response across the metamagnetic transition and to map out the phase diagram of the material. Applied hydrostatic pressures of up to 6 kbar lead to an increase in the local magnetic field along with a complex change in the internal magnetic field distribution.
Searches for neutrinoless-double beta decay rates are crucial in addressing questions within fundamental symmetries and neutrino physics. The rates of these decays depend not only on unknown parameters associated with neutrinos, but also on nuclear properties. In order to reliably extract information about the neutrino, one needs an accurate treatment of the complex many-body dynamics of the nucleus. Neutrinoless-double beta decays take place at momentum transfers on the order of 100 MeV/$c$ and require both nuclear electroweak vector and axial current matrix elements. Muon capture, a process in the same momentum transfer regime, has readily available experimental data to validate these currents. In this work, we present results of {\it ab initio} calculations of partial muon capture rates for $^3$He and $^6$Li nuclei using variational and Green's Function Monte Carlo computational methods. We estimate the impact of the three-nucleon interactions, the cutoffs used to regularize two-nucleon ($2N$) interactions, and the energy range of $2N$ scattering data used to fit these interactions.
Here, we consider the capture of a muon on a deuteron. An uncertainty analysis of the dominant channels is important for a careful analysis of forthcoming experimental data. We quantify the theoretical uncertainties of chiral effective-field-theory predictions of the muon-deuteron capture rate from the relevant neutron-neutron partial wave channels in the final state. We study the dependence on the cutoff used to regularize the interactions, low-energy constants calibrated using different fitting data and strategies, and truncation of the effective-field-theory expansion of the currents. Combining these approaches gives as an estimate of $Γ^{1/2}_{μd}$ = 399.1 ± 7.6 ± 4.4 s –1 for capture from the atomic doublet state, and $Γ^{3/2}_{μd}$= 12.31 ± 0.47 ± 0.04 s –1 for capture from the quartet state and the first and second uncertainties given here are due to the effective field theory truncation error and the uncertainty in the axial radius, respectively.