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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Constraining the Origin of Local Positrons with HAWC TeV Gamma-Ray Observations of Two Nearby Pulsar Wind Nebulae

Cosmic-ray positrons are charged antiparticles that strike Earth's atmosphere isotropically. At energies below several GeV they are produced by cosmic-ray protons interacting with nearby interstellar matter. At higher energies, an unexpected and unexplained excess above the proton-induced background has been detected by several satellites, including PAMELA, AMS-02 and Fermi. Due to energy losses in interstellar magnetic and radiation fields, the highest-energy positrons observed must have originated in our immediate Galactic neighborhood. This excess has been theorized to be originated from nearby astrophysical sources, dark matter, or new modes of cosmic-ray secondary production. Amongst the astrophysical sources, pulsars as Geminga and PSR B0656+14 have been proposed to be contributors to this excess. The HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory reported the discovery of TeV gamma-ray emission extending several degrees around the positions of Geminga and PSR B0656+14 pulsars. Using the morphological and spectral measurements of these two VHE gamma-ray sources, we determine the diffusion coefficient of electrons escaping them and their contribution to the positron flux measured at Earth. For this assumption of isotropic diffusion, we find that neither of these sources make an appreciable contribution to the locally measured positron flux.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Nuclear Matrix Elements for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay

Neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) is a rare hypothesised process that, if discovered, would establish that the neutrino is Majorana, that is, it is its own antiparticle. Interpretation of experimental results relies on knowledge of nuclear matrix elements, whose large model uncertainty is the limiting factor in comparing measured (bounds on) half-lives to the neutrino mass. Nuclear effective field theory and lattice QCD have the potential to compute these matrix elements with better control over uncertainties, enhancing the discovery potential of next-generation $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiments. This work will survey various lattice QCD double-beta decay calculations and discuss their implications.

Grebe, Anthony V. [Fermilab] (ORCID:00000003103201↗
DOE OSTI2021

General Quantum Field Theory of Flavor Mixing and Oscillations

We review the canonical transformation in quantum physics known as the Bogoliubov transformation and present its application to the general theory of quantum field mixing and oscillations with an arbitrary number of mixed particles with either boson or fermion statistics. The mixing relations for quantum states are derived directly from the definition of mixing for quantum fields and the unitary inequivalence of the Fock space of energy and flavor eigenstates is shown by a straightforward algebraic method. The time dynamics of the interacting fields is then explicitly solved and the flavor oscillation formulas are derived in a unified general formulation with emphasis on antiparticle content and effect introduced by nontrivial flavor vacuum.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

Fast-pairwise Collective Neutrino Oscillations Associated with Asymmetric Neutrino Emissions in Core-collapse Supernovae

We present a linear stability analysis of the fast-pairwise neutrino flavor conversion based on a result of our latest axisymmetric core-collapse supernova (CCSN) simulation with full Boltzmann neutrino transport. In the CCSN simulation, coherent asymmetric neutrino emissions of electron-type neutrinos (νe) and their antiparticles ($\bar{v}$e), in which the asymmetries of νe and $\bar{v}$e are anticorrelated with each other, occur at almost the same time as the onset of aspherical shock expansion. We find that the asymmetric neutrino emissions play a crucial role on occurrences of fast flavor conversions. The linear analysis shows that unstable modes appear in both pre- and post-shock flows; for the latter, they appear only in the hemisphere of higher $\bar{v}$e emissions (the same hemisphere with stronger shock expansion). We analyze the characteristics of electron–lepton number (ELN) crossing in depth by closely inspecting the angular distributions of neutrinos in momentum space. The ELN crossing happens in various ways, and the property depends on the radius: in the vicinity of neutron star, $\bar{v}$e (νe) dominates over ve ($\bar{n}$e) in the forward (backward) direction; at the larger radius, the ELN crossing occurs in the opposite way. We also find that the non-radial ELN crossing occurs at the boundary between no ELN crossing and the radial one, which is an effect of genuine multi-dimensional transport. Our findings indicate that the collective neutrino oscillation may occur more commonly in CCSNe and suggest that the CCSN community needs to accommodate these oscillations self-consistently in the modeling of CCSNe

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Search for an Anomalous Excess of Single Photons in the MicroBooNE Neutrino Experiment

Neutrinos are some of the most elusive particles in the standard model, being incredibly common throughout the universe, but interacting with detectors incredibly rarely. Certain properties of neutrinos remain difficult to measure, including their masses, their CP violation properties, and whether or not they are their own antiparticles. Additionally, there have been several anomalous results in neutrino experiments which remain unexplained. MicroBooNE was built in order to study these anomalous results using a more capable detector technology, the Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber. Specifically, MicroBooNE is able to search for an anomalous excess of low energy electromagnetic showers, which was previously observed by the MiniBooNE experiment. In particular, MicroBooNE is able to study whether the excess could consist of electron showers or photon showers. In this thesis, I describe a search for this anomalous excess by targeting neutral current Delta radiative decays, the largest expected source of single photons in MicroBooNE. We observe data consistent with our nominal expectation, but cannot rule out all potential sources of additional single photon events, particularly those with no visible proton activity. There remains significant potential to probe this channel in even more detail using MicroBooNE and other experiments in the near future.Hagaman, Lee

Hagaman, Lee [Chicago U.]↗
NASA NTRS1978

Secondary positrons and electrons in the cosmic radiation

An improved calculation of the secondary production and equilibrium spectrum of positrons and electrons in the Galaxy in the energy range from 1 MeV to 100 GeV has been performed. This has been done by obtaining an analytic representation of the accelerator data which describes accurately the invariant cross-section of pions, kaons, and their antiparticles from threshold energy to about 1500 GeV. This calculation takes into account the correct angular distribution of electrons in the decay of muons and the effect of nuclei-nuclei collisions. The contributions of beta-decay positrons and knock-on electrons have been included. A comparison of the present calculations with earlier calculations and experiment is presented.

Badhwar, G. D.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Workshop on Cosmic Ray and High Energy Gamma Ray Experiments for the Space Station Era, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, October 17-20, 1984, Proceedings

The potential of the Space Station as a platform for cosmic-ray and high-energy gamma-ray astronomy is discussed in reviews, reports, and specific proposals. Topics examined include antiparticles and electrons, science facilities and new technology, high-energy nuclear interactions, nuclear composition and energy spectra, Space Shuttle experiments, Space Station facilities and detectors, high-energy gamma rays, and gamma-ray facilities and techniques. Consideration is given to universal-baryon-symmetry testing on the scale of galactic clusters, particle studies in a high-inclination orbit, balloon-borne emulsion-chamber results on ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus interactions, ionization states of low-energy cosmic rays, a large gamma-ray telescope for point-source studies above 1 GeV, and the possible existence of stable quark matter.

Jones, W. V.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Statistical fluctuations as the origin of nontopological solitons

Nontopological solitons can be formed during a phase transition in the early universe as long as some net charge can be trapped in regions of false vacuum. It has been previously suggested that a particle-antiparticle asymmetry would provide a source for such trapped charge. It is pointed out that, for the model and parameters considered, statistical fluctuations provide a much larger concentration of charge, and are therefore, the dominant source of charge fluctuations in solitogenesis.

Griest, Kim↗
NASA NTRS1990

Feasibility for EGRET detection of antimatter concentrations in the universe

Although the Grand Unified Theories of elementary particle dynamics have to some extent reduced the aesthetic attraction of matter-antimatter symmetry in the Universe, the idea is still not ruled out. Although first introduced by Alfven (1965), most of the theoretical development related to gamma-ray astronomy was carried out by Stecker, who has proposed (Stecker, Morgan, and Bredekamp, 1971) matter-antimatter annihilation extending back to large redshifts as a possible explanation of the apparently extragalactic diffuse gamma radiation. Other candidate explanations were also proposed, such as superposition of extragalactic discrete sources. Clearly, the existence of significant amounts of antimatter in the universe would be of great cosmological importance; its detection, however, is not simple. Since the photon is its own antiparticle, it carries no signature identifying whether it originated in a matter or an antimatter process; even aggregates of photons (spectra) are expected to be identical from matter and antimatter processes. The only likely indicator of the presence of concentrations of antimatter is evidence of its annihilation with normal matter, assuming there is some region of contact or overlap. The EGRET (Energetic Gamma-Ray Experimental Telescope) on the Gamma Ray Observatory, with a substantial increase in sensitivity compared with earlier high energy gamma ray telescopes, may be able to address this issue. The feasibility of using EGRET in such a search for antimatter annihilation in the Universe is considered.

Hartman, R. C.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Quons, an interpolation between Bose and Fermi oscillators

After a brief mention of Bose and Fermi oscillators and of particles which obey other types of statistics, including intermediate statistics, parastatistics, paronic statistics, anyon statistics, and infinite statistics, I discuss the statistics of 'quons' (pronounced to rhyme with muons), particles whose annihilation and creation operators obey the q-deformed commutation relation (the quon algebra or q-mutator) which interpolates between fermions and bosons. I emphasize that the operator for interaction with an external source must be an effective Bose operator in all cases. To accomplish this for parabose, parafermi and quon operators, I introduce parabose, parafermi, and quon Grassmann numbers, respectively. I also discuss interactions of non-relativistic quons, quantization of quon fields with antiparticles, calculation of vacuum matrix elements of relativistic quon fields, demonstration of the TCP theorem, cluster decomposition, and Wick's theorem for relativistic quon fields, and the failure of local commutativity of observables for relativistic quon fields. I conclude with the bound on the parameter q for electrons due to the Ramberg-Snow experiment.

Greenberg, O. W.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Opportunities in cosmic-ray physics and astrophysics

The Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council established the Committee on Cosmic-Ray Physics to prepare a review of the field that addresses both experimental and theoretical aspects of the origin of cosmic radiation from outside the heliosphere. The following recommendations are made: NASA should provide the opportunity to measure cosmic-ray electrons, positrons, ultraheavy nuclei, isotopes, and antiparticles in space; NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Energy (DOE) should facilitate direct and indirect measurement of the elemental composition to as high an energy as possible, for which the support of long-duration ballooning and hybrid ground arrays will be needed; NSF and DOE should support the new Fly's Eye and provide for U.S. participation in the big projects on the horizon, which include giant arrays, ground-based gamma-ray astronomy, and neutrino telescopes; and NASA, NSF, and DOE should support a strong program of relevant theoretical investigations.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2003

A Scintillation Counter System Design To Detect Antiproton Annihilation using the High Performance Antiproton Trap(HiPAT)

The High Performance Antiproton Trap (HiPAT), a system designed to hold up to l0(exp 12) charge particles with a storage half-life of approximately 18 days, is a tool to support basic antimatter research. NASA's interest stems from the energy density represented by the annihilation of matter with antimatter, 10(exp 2)MJ/g. The HiPAT is configured with a Penning-Malmberg style electromagnetic confinement region with field strengths up to 4 Tesla, and 20kV. To date a series of normal matter experiments, using positive and negative ions, have been performed evaluating the designs performance prior to operations with antiprotons. The primary methods of detecting and monitoring stored normal matter ions and antiprotons within the trap includes a destructive extraction technique that makes use of a micro channel plate (MCP) device and a non-destractive radio frequency scheme tuned to key particle frequencies. However, an independent means of detecting stored antiprotons is possible by making use of the actual annihilation products as a unique indicator. The immediate yield of the annihilation event includes photons and pie mesons, emanating spherically from the point of annihilation. To "count" these events, a hardware system of scintillators, discriminators, coincident meters and multi channel scalars (MCS) have been configured to surround much of the HiPAT. Signal coincidence with voting logic is an essential part of this system, necessary to weed out the single cosmic ray events from the multi-particle annihilation shower. This system can be operated in a variety of modes accommodating various conditions. The first is a low-speed sampling interval that monitors the background loss or "evaporation" rate of antiprotons held in the trap during long storage periods; provides an independent method of validating particle lifetimes. The second is a high-speed sample rate accumulating information on a microseconds time-scale; useful when trapped antiparticles are extracted against a target, providing an indication of quantity. This paper details the layout of this system, setup of the hardware components around HiPAT, and applicable checkouts using normal matter radioactive sources.

Martin, James J.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Radio-Frequency Plasma Cleaning of a Penning Malmberg Trap

Radio-frequency-generated plasma has been demonstrated to be a promising means of cleaning the interior surfaces of a Penning-Malmberg trap that is used in experiments on the confinement of antimatter. {Such a trap was reported in Modified Penning-Malmberg Trap for Storing Antiprotons (MFS-31780), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 29, No. 3 (March 2005), page 66.} Cleaning of the interior surfaces is necessary to minimize numbers of contaminant atoms and molecules, which reduce confinement times by engaging in matter/antimatter-annihilation reactions with confined antimatter particles. A modified Penning-Malmberg trap like the one described in the cited prior article includes several collinear ring electrodes (some of which are segmented) inside a tubular vacuum chamber, as illustrated in Figure 1. During operation of the trap, a small cloud of charged antiparticles (e.g., antiprotons or positrons) is confined to a spheroidal central region by means of a magnetic field in combination with DC and radiofrequency (RF) electric fields applied via the electrodes. In the present developmental method of cleaning by use of RF-generated plasma, one evacuates the vacuum chamber, backfills the chamber with hydrogen at a suitable low pressure, and uses an RF-signal generator and baluns to apply RF voltages to the ring electrodes. Each ring is excited in the polarity opposite that of the adjacent ring. The electric field generated by the RF signal creates a discharge in the low-pressure gas. The RF power and gas pressure are adjusted so that the plasma generated in the discharge (see Figure 2) physically and chemically attacks any solid, liquid, and gaseous contaminant layers on the electrode surfaces. The products of the physical and chemical cleaning reactions are gaseous and are removed by the vacuum pumps.

Sims, William Herbert, III↗
NASA NTRS2012

Positron Interactions with Atoms and Ions

Dirac, in 1928, combining the ideas of quantum mechanics and the ideas of relativity invented the well-known relativistic wave equation. In his formulation, he predicted an antiparticle of the electron of spin n-bar/2. He thought that this particle must be a proton. Dirac published his interpretation in a paper 'A theory of electrons and protons.' It was shown later by the mathematician Hermann Weyl that the Dirac theory was completely symmetric between negative and positive particles and the positive particle must have the same mass as that of the electron. In his J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize Acceptance Speech, Dirac notes that 'Blackett was really the first person to obtain hard evidence for the existence of a positron but he was afraid to publish it. He wanted confirmation, he was really over cautious.' Positron, produced by the collision of cosmic rays in a cloud chamber, was detected experimentally by Anderson in 1932. His paper was published in Physical Review in 1933. The concept of the positron and its detection were the important discoveries of the 20th century. I have tried to discuss various processes involving interactions of positrons with atoms and ions. This includes scattering, bound states and resonances. It has not been possible to include the enormous work which has been carried out during the last 40 or 50 years in theory and measurements.

Bhatia, Anand K.↗
DOE OSTI2015

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: A Search for Neutrino less Double-beta Decay of Ge-76

Neutrino less double-beta (Ov beta beta) decay is a hypothesized process where in some even-even nuclei it might be possible for two neutrons to simultaneously decay into two protons and two electrons without emitting neutrinos. This is possible only if neutrinos are Majorana particles, i.e. fermions that are their own antiparticles. Neutrinos being Majorana particles would explicitly violate lepton number conservation, and might play a role in the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would also provide complementary information related to neutrino masses. The MAJORANA Collaboration is constructing the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, with a total of 40-kg Germanium detectors, to search for the Ov beta beta decay of Ge-76 and to demonstrate a background rate at or below 3 counts/ (ROI.t.y) in the 4 keV region of interest (ROT) around the 2039 keV Q-value for Ge-76 Ov beta beta decay. In this paper, we discuss the physics of neutrinoless double beta decay and then focus on the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, including its design and approach to achieve ultra-low backgrounds and the status of the experiment.

Xu, W.↗
DOE OSTI2019

Optimizing Performance of a Charge-Sensitive Amplifier for the LEGEND-200 Experiment

The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would provide evidence for the proposition that neutrinos are their own antiparticle, a property that is not prescribed in the Standard Model. The proposed Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless double beta Decay (LEGEND) will search for this decay mode in 76Ge by deploying high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors enriched in this isotope. The signal from two hundred kilograms of HPGe detectors will be fed to low-radioactivity, charge-sensing amplifiers (CSA) deployed in the first phase of the LEGEND experiment: LEGEND-200. We optimized the performance of the CSA in different test conditions by varying the operating parameters (including voltages supplied to the active components of the CSA) and measured the properties of the amplified waveform, such as rise time, dynamic range, and electronic noise. The optimized parameters lead to waveforms with the following characteristics: 90 ns rise time, a dynamic range from 0-10 MeV, and noise of 620 keV (FWHM) at a total power consumption of 156 mW in liquid nitrogen. The optimization process will continue as the circuit is integrated with other components of the experiment.

Lawley, Gannon↗
DOE OSTI2022

Proton Scattering in NOvA Test Beam

The NuMI Off-axis $\nu_e$ Appearance (NOvA) experiment is a two-detector, long baseline, neutrino oscillation experiment, which aims to make a determination of the neutrino mass ordering, the octant of $\theta_{23}$, and measure possible charge-parity (CP) violation. Determining these parameters is a step towards answering some of the fundamental questions about neutrinos. Are neutrinos their own antiparticle? Could neutrinos be responsible for the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe? How do neutrinos get their mass? Answering these questions requires precise measurements of the parameters that govern how neutrinos behave, namely the mass squared splittings, mixing angles, and possible CP-violating phase factor in the PNMS matrix. Reaching high precision requires minimizing both statistical and systematic errors. As NOvA continues to accumulate data, the sizes of our statistical errors continue to shrink such that in a couple of years they will be comparable to our systematic errors. NOvA's current systematic errors are dominated by energy and calibration uncertainties. The Test Beam program was initiated to address these uncertainties by assessing the detector response in an environment where more parameters of the incoming particles are known. One of the main goals of the Test Beam program is to garner a better understanding of our systematic errors, particularly in energy measurement and detector response, so that the modeling of these parameters can be improved. I studied protons in the Test Beam Detector with momenta around \unit[1]{GeV/c}, the high end of the momentum range relevant to quasielastic neutrino interactions in NOvA. One question this sample can help to answer is if we correctly simulate the fraction of protons that have an inelastic scattering interaction versus ranging out. If protons inelastically scatter at different rates in our simulation and data, the correction applied to the hadronic system when reconstructing neutrino energy could be inaccurate, since events with inelastic scattering will have less visible energy in the detector. This is particularly important for quasielastic $\nu_\mu$ events, which have the lowest hadronic energy resolution, and therefore give us our best measurements of $\Delta m_{32}^2$ and $\theta_{23}$.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Simulations, Modeling and Data Analysis of Parity Violating Electron Scattering Experiments

In the Standard Model (SM) of nuclear and particle physics, parity violation is incorporated through the representation of the weak interaction as a chiral gauge interaction. Only the left-handed components of particles and right-handed components of antiparticles participate in weak interactions in the Standard Model. This implies that parity is asymmetric for the weak interaction. Parity violating electron scattering (PVES) experiments are designed to probe the physics parameters related to the SM, with the possibility to discover physics beyond the SM (BSM) by measuring the parity violating asymmetry ¿¿¿ of longitudinally polarized electrons scattered off unpolarized targets with high precision. This dissertation will be focused on two PVES experiments, the next 208Pb Lead Radius Experiment (PREX-II), and the Measurement of a Lepton-Lepton Electroweak Reaction (MOLLER) experiment, as well as in some small sections, the Calcium Radius Experiment (CREX) and P2 experiment which are also PVES experiments). PREX-II and CREX experiments, performed in Hall A at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab), measured ¿¿¿ in the elastic scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons from 208Pb and 48Ca targets to provide a precise model independent determination of the neutron skin thickness of 208Pb and 48Ca nuclei, respectively. The MOLLER experiment, proposed to start in 2027 and also to be performed in Hall A at Jefferson Lab, is to measure ¿¿¿ of longitudinally polarized electrons scattered off unpolarized electrons (Møller scattering) to determine the weak charge of electrons ¿¿¿ and the weak mixing angle ¿¿ with high precision. As for the P2 experiment, which will be performed at the upcoming MESA accelerator in Mainz Germany, it is to measure the weak charge of proton ¿¿¿ using ¿¿¿ in the elastic electron-proton scattering of polarized electrons off unpolarized protons. The final results from the PREX-II experiment are presented as ¿¿¿=550±16 (¿¿¿¿)±8 (¿¿¿¿) parts-per-billion (ppb). Combining the PREX-I and PREX-II results, the neutron skin thickness from PREX experiments is determined as ¿¿-¿¿=0.283±0.071 ¿¿ in 208Pb. This thesis lists the software and computational contribution of the author to these PVES experiments, including writing scripts and software to help with the PREX-II/CREX experiments, analyzing data to provide useful information and systematic uncertainty for the PREX-II experiment, modeling and simulations for the MOLLER, and providing an alternative design of an electronic equipment for the P2 experiment.

Chen, Yufan↗