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At least 1,351 records · Page 75

Simultaneous measurement of organic scintillator response to carbon and proton recoils

Organic scintillators are widely used for neutron detection in both basic nuclear physics and applications. While the proton light yield of organic scintillators has been extensively studied, measurements of the light yield from neutron interactions with carbon nuclei are scarce. Demonstrate a new approach for the simultaneous measurement of the proton and carbon light yield of organic scintillators. Provide new carbon light yield data for the EJ-309 liquid and EJ-204 plastic organic scintillators. A 33-MeV 2 H + beam from the 88-Inch Cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was impinged upon a 3-mm-thick Be target to produce a high-flux, broad-spectrum neutron beam. The double time-of-flight technique was extended to simultaneously measure the proton and carbon light yields of the organic scintillators, wherein the light output associated with the recoil particle was determined using np and nC elastic scattering kinematics. The proton and carbon light yield relations of the EJ-309 liquid and EJ-204 plastic organic scintillators were measured over a recoil energy range of approximately 0.3 to 1 MeV and 2 to 5 MeV, respectively, for EJ-309, and 0.2 to 0.5 MeV and 1 to 4 MeV, respectively, for EJ-204. Furthermore, these data provide new insight into the ionization quenching effect in organic scintillators and key input for simulation of the response of organic scintillators for both basic science and a broad range of applications.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Real-Time Fault Location Using the Retardation Method

A new method for short-circuit fault location is proposed. The method is based on instantaneous signal measurement and its first and second derivatives, which are the novel elements of the current approach. The derivatives allow associating a precise time stamp to the occurrence of the fault. Due to retardation phenomena, the difference between the times in which a signal is registered in two detectors can be used to locate the fault. We offer several mathematical models to describe the fault. Although a description of faults in terms of a lumped circuit is useful for elucidating the methods for detecting the fault, this description will not suffice to describe the fault signal propagation; hence, a distributed models is needed, which is given in terms of the telegraph equations. Those equations were used to derive a transmission line transfer function, and an exact analytical description of the fault signal propagating in the transmission line was obtained. The analytical solution was verified both by numerical simulations and experimentally.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Neural posterior unfolding

Differential cross section measurements are the currency of scientific exchange in particle and nuclear physics. A key challenge for these analyses is the correction for detector distortions, known as deconvolution or unfolding. Binned unfolding of cross section measurements traditionally rely on the regularized inversion of the response matrix that represents the detector response, mapping pre-detector (`particle level') observables to post-detector (`detector level') observables. In this paper we introduce Neural Posterior Unfolding, a modern, Bayesian approach that leverages normalizing flows for unfolding. By using normalizing flows for neural posterior estimation, NPU offers several key advantages including implicit regularization through the neural network architecture, fast amortized inference that eliminates the need for repeated retraining, and direct access to the full uncertainty in the unfolded result. In addition to introducing NPU, we implement a classical Bayesian unfolding method called Fully Bayesian Unfolding (FBU) in modern Python so it can also be studied. These tools are validated on simple Gaussian examples and then tested on simulated jet substructure examples from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We find that the Bayesian methods are effective and worth additional development to be analysis ready for cross section measurements at the LHC and beyond.

Analysis and statistical methods↗

Dynamic attenuation scheme in measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution over turbulent channels

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI QKD) offers great security in practice because it removes all detector side channels. However, conducting MDI QKD over free-space channels is challenging. One of the largest culprits is the mismatched transmittance of the two independent turbulent channels causing a reduced Hong-Ou-Mandel visibility and thus a lower secret key rate. Here we introduce a dynamic attenuation scheme, where the transmittance of each of the two channels is monitored in real time by transmitting bright light pulses from each users to the measurement device. Based on the measured channel transmittance, a suitable amount of attenuation is introduced to the low-loss channel at the measurement device. Our simulation results show a significant improvement of QKD performance, especially when using short raw keys.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Adaptive Envelope Detector-Based Phase Fault Detection Method for Power System Grid Distortions

In this study, a phase fault detection algorithm is developed by employing the envelope detector method. The proposed method diagnoses faults among phases and defines fault areas in the incoming signal. The designed algorithm consists of three steps: analytical signal conversion, complex magnitude, and fault detection. Initially, an analytical signal is obtained from the incoming power signal to determine the instantaneous amplitude and phase of the signal. A complex magnitude operation is applied to analytical signals to display changes in amplitude. On the basis of the threshold values specified by the user, the last step identifies the distortion signal in terms of the type of error and size. The proposed method is tested with realistically simulated substation power signal data and real power system data from the Grid Event Signature Library. The obtained results revealed that the proposed method detects distortions accurately.

Alaca, Ozgur↗

Supernova Shock Breakout/Emergence Detection Predictions for a Wide-field X-Ray Survey

There are currently many large-field surveys that are operational and are being planned including the powerful Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time. These surveys will increase the number and diversity of transients dramatically. However, for some transients, like supernovae (SNe), we can gain more understanding by directed observations (e.g., shock breakout and γ-ray detections) than by simply increasing the sample size. For example, the initial emission from these transients can be a powerful probe of these explosions. Upcoming ground-based detectors are not ideally suited to observing the initial emission (shock emergence) of these transients. These observations require a large field-of-view X-ray mission with a UV follow-up within the first hour of shock breakout. The emission in the first 1 hr to even 1 day provides strong constraints on the stellar radius and asymmetries in the outer layers of stars, the properties of the circumstellar medium (e.g., inhomogeneities in the wind for core-collapse SNe and accreting companions in thermonuclear SNe), and the transition region between these two areas. This paper describes a simulation for the number of SNe that could be seen by a large field-of-view lobster-eye X-ray and UV observatory.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Unfolding quantum computer readout noise

Abstract In the current era of noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers, noisy qubits can result in biased results for early quantum algorithm applications. This is a significant challenge for interpreting results from quantum computer simulations for quantum chemistry, nuclear physics, high energy physics (HEP), and other emerging scientific applications. An important class of qubit errors are readout errors. The most basic method to correct readout errors is matrix inversion, using a response matrix built from simple operations to probe the rate of transitions from known initial quantum states to readout outcomes. One challenge with inverting matrices with large off-diagonal components is that the results are sensitive to statistical fluctuations. This challenge is familiar to HEP, where prior-independent regularized matrix inversion techniques (“unfolding”) have been developed for years to correct for acceptance and detector effects, when performing differential cross section measurements. We study one such method, known as iterative Bayesian unfolding, as a potential tool for correcting readout errors from universal gate-based quantum computers. This method is shown to avoid pathologies from commonly used matrix inversion and least squares methods.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Search for Slow Magnetic Monopoles with the NOνA Far Detector

The magnetic monopole is a hypothetical particle with a magnetic charge. It is an important field configuration in many Grand Unified Theories. Dirac in 1931 derived a charge quantization condition, which suggests that the existence of one magnetic monopole in the universe will explain electric charge quantization. Since then, a search of the elusive particle has begun, and yet all came with negative results. The NO$\nu$A Far Detector is able to probe some of the parameter space for the search for monopoles. To achieve this, two dedicated triggers, one for fast monopoles and the other for slow monopoles, have been developed to record signals. Results for the first 8 months of high-gain slow monopole data were obtained, and a 90\% CL limit was established with no monopole observed. The analysis in this thesis is focused on new data with a higher gain, and we have explored potential improvement in efficiency and improvements in the reconstruction algorithm. We have done this an alysis on Monte-Carlo generated simulated data to establish efficiencies and examined a control set of the new data to understand its differences from the old.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Attack on Grid Event Cause Analysis: An Adversarial Machine Learning Approach

With the ever-increasing reliance on data for data-driven applications in power grids, such as event cause analysis, the authenticity of data streams has become crucially important. The data can be prone to adversarial stealthy attacks aiming to manipulate the data such that residual-based bad data detectors cannot detect them, and the perception of system operators or event classifiers changes about the actual event. This paper investigates the impact of adversarial attacks on convolutional neural network-based event cause analysis frameworks. We have successfully verified the ability of adversaries to maliciously misclassify events through stealthy data manipulations. The vulnerability assessment is studied with respect to the number of compromised measurements. Furthermore, a defense mechanism to robustify the performance of the event cause analysis is proposed. The effectiveness of adversarial attacks on changing the output of the framework is studied using the data generated by real-time digital simulator (RTDS) under different scenarios such as type of attacks and level of access to data.

Niazazari, Iman↗

Time-Based CAN IDS Paper Results Code

Modern vehicles are complex cyber-physical systems made of hundreds of electronic control units (ECUs) that communicate over controller area networks (CANs). This inherited complexity has expanded the CAN attack surface which is vulnerable to message injection attacks. These injections change the overall timing characteristics of messages on the bus, and thus, to detect these malicious messages, time-based intrusion detection systems (IDSs) have been proposed. However, time-based IDSs are usually trained and tested on low-fidelity datasets with unrealistic, labeled attacks. This makes difficult the task of evaluating, comparing, and validating IDSs. Here we detail and benchmark four time-based IDSs against the newly published ROAD dataset, the first open CAN IDS dataset with real (non-simulated) stealthy attacks with physically verified effects. We found that methods that perform hypothesis testing by explicitly estimating message timing distributions have lower performance than methods that seek anomalies in a distribution related statistic. In particular, these “distribution-agnostic” based methods outperform “distribution-based” methods by at least 55% in area under the precision-recall curve (AUC-PR). Our results expand the body of knowledge of CAN time-based IDSs by providing details of these methods and reporting their results when tested on datasets with real advanced attacks. Finally, we develop an after-market plug-in detector using lightweight hardware, which can be used to deploy the best performing IDS method on nearly any vehicle.

Moriano, Pablo [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oa↗

Background Measurements and Simulations of the ComPair Balloon Flight

ComPair, a prototype of the All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-ray Observatory (AMEGO), completed a short-duration high-altitude balloon campaign on 27 August 2023 from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, USA. The goal of the balloon flight was to demonstrate ComPair as both a Compton and Pair telescope in flight, reject the charged particle background, and measure the background γ-ray spectrum. This analysis compares measurements from the balloon flight with Monte Carlo simulations to benchmark the instrument. The comparison finds good agreement between the measurements and simulations and supports the conclusion that ComPair accomplished its goals for the balloon campaign. Additionally, two charged particle background rejection schemes are discussed: a soft ACD veto that records a higher charged particle event rate but with less risk of event loss, and a hard ACD veto that limits the charged particle event rate on board. There was little difference in the measured spectra from the soft and hard ACD veto schemes, indicating that the hard ACD veto could be used for future flights. The successes of ComPair’s engineering flight will inform the development of the next generation of ComPair with upgraded detector technology and larger active area.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

magnetoARPES: Angle Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy with magnetic field control

Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES) is a premier technique for understanding the electronic excitations in conductive, crystalline matter, in which the induced photocurrent is collected and dispersed in energy and angle of emission to reveal the energy- and momentum-dependent single particle spectral function A (k,ω). So far, ARPES in a magnetic field has been precluded due to the need to preserve the electron paths between the sample and detector. Here, in this paper we report progress towards “magnetoARPES”, a variant of ARPES that can be conducted in a magnetic field. It is achieved by applying a microscopic probe beam (≲10 μm) to a thinned sample mounted upon a special sample holder that generates magnetic field confined to a thin layer near the sample surface. In this geometry we could produce ARPES in magnetic fields up to around ±100 mT. The magnetic fields can be varied from purely in-plane to nearly purely out-of-plane, by scanning the probe beam across different parts of the device. We present experimental and simulated data for graphene to explore the aberrations induced by the magnetic field. These results demonstrate the viability of the magnetoARPES technique for exploring symmetry breaking effects in weak magnetic fields.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Novel imaging technique for thermal neutrons using a fast optical camera

A novel imaging technique for thermal neutrons using a fast optical camera is presented. Thermal neutrons are reacted with 6 Lithium to produce a pair of 2.73 MeV tritium and 2.05 MeV alpha particles, which in turn interact in a thin layer of LYSO crystal scintillator to produce a localized flash of light. These photons are directed by a pair of lenses to a micro-channel plate intensifier, and its output is connected to the optical camera, TPX3CAM. The results from the camera are reconstructed through a custom algorithm. Various cutting parameters were found through data analysis to eliminate the background, and they were shown effective in matching the simulated rate of the neutron source. The system is fast with 40 ns decay time and allows free-space light collection, both vastly enhances flexibility of neutron detection.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Constraining the P 30 ( p , γ ) S 31 Reaction Rate in ONe Novae via the Weak, Low-Energy, β -Delayed Proton Decay of Cl 31

The 30 P(p,γ) 31 S reaction plays an important role in understanding the nucleosynthesis of A ≥ 30 nuclides in oxygen-neon novae. The Gaseous Detector with Germanium Tagging was used to measure 31 Cl β-delayed proton decay through the key J π = 3/2 + , 260-keV resonance. The intensity $I$$^{260}_{βp}$ = $8.3$$^{+1.2}_{–0.9}$ × 10 –6 represents the weakest β-delayed, charged-particle emission ever measured below 400 keV, resulting in a proton branching ratio of Γ p /Γ = $2.5$$^{+0.4}_{–0.3}$ × 10 –4 . Here, by combining this measurement with shell-model calculations for Γγ and past work on other resonances, the total 30 P(p,γ) 31 S rate has been determined with reduced uncertainty. The new rate has been used in hydrodynamic simulations to model the composition of nova ejecta, leading to a concrete prediction of 30 Si: 28 Si excesses in presolar nova grains and the calibration of nuclear thermometers.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Estimating β eff from static, late-time Feynman neutron noise measurements

The effective delayed neutron fraction, β eff , is a kinematic parameter describing the contribution of delayed neutrons to the effective multiplication factor, $\kappa$ eff , and is of great interest to the nuclear criticality safety community and beyond. In fact, $\kappa$ eff presently must be inferred (as opposed to directly measured) since variables like β eff must be obtained from simulation, reference tables, or a dynamic or pulsed measurement where the assembly of fissile material is perturbed and not in steady state. Several recent works have proposed neutron noise techniques to estimate β eff from static measurements (such as benchmark experiments). This work experimentally investigates an approach based on looking at late-time (up to thousands of seconds) correlated neutrons in Feynman histograms. This work utilizes measurements of weapons grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium to construct late-time Feynman histograms and investigate a proposed methodology of estimating β eff from a fit of the distribution. Data is shown from both He-3 detectors and an organic scintillator array. This work is preliminary in nature, demonstrating some experimental feasibility and proposing improvements for future investigations.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Impact of composition and symmetry energy on the temperature of quasiprojectiles simulated with antisymmetrized molecular dynamics

The equation of state describes the emergent physical properties of matter. Experimental data is needed to help constrain the equation of state for nuclear matter. These constraints can help distinguish between an “asy-stiff” and an “asy-soft” equation of state, which has astrophysical implications. One path to help constrain the models is to analyze the nuclear caloric curve; some experiments have shown dependence on neutron excess, and may thus be sensitive to the asymmetry. A difference in the caloric curve based on the asymmetry of the reconstructed quasiprojectile (QP) had been observed using 70 Zn on 70 Zn at 35 MeV/nucleon taken with the NIMROD array. Antisymmetrized molecular dynamics calculations were performed for the same system and deexcited with gemini++. Both Gogny (asy-soft) and Gogny-as (asy-stiff) data sets were generated. The particles were then filtered based on detector geometric acceptance and thresholds. From the accepted particles, the excitation energy and temperature were calculated in the same way as for experimental data. Additionally, filter effects on the observed nuclear caloric curves were investigated. A tendency for the asy-stiff nuclear caloric curves to have higher temperatures than their asy-soft counterparts was observed for a number of probes. In addition, some probes may show sensitivity to the reconstructed composition of the QP, but this is inconclusive due to high statistical fluctuations and a large dependence on the exact method of event selection.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Understanding Formation of Irradiation-Induced Defects through 4D-STEM, Electron Tomography, and WBDF-STEM

A major challenge in advancing nuclear materials for next-generation fission and proposed fusion reactors is to comprehensively understand the formation of irradiation-induced defects. Here it is essential to correlate the evolution of irradiation-induced defects and the degradation of mechanical properties, as they collectively dictate the material's lifespan and ensure nuclear safety. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) based techniques have emerged as indispensable tools for irradiation-induced defect characterization, offering high spatial resolution imaging and chemical analysis, such as electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS). These techniques have been effectively used to obtain an atomic-scale view of the defect structure. Recent advances in electron microscopy, particularly in 4D-STEM, offer detailed insight into microstructural evolution by capturing full 2D diffraction patterns at every pixel position. Using high-speed direct electron detectors, this technology generates a four-dimensional dataset, overcoming the limitations of traditional STEM imaging.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Calorimetric classification of track-like signatures in liquid argon TPCs using MicroBooNE data

The MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber located at Fermilab is a neutrino experiment dedicated to the study of short-baseline oscillations, the measurements of neutrino cross sections in liquid argon, and to the research and development of this novel detector technology. Accurate and precise measurements of calorimetry are essential to the event reconstruction and are achieved by leveraging the TPC to measure deposited energy per unit length along the particle trajectory, with mm resolution. We describe the non-uniform calorimetric reconstruction performance in the detector, showing dependence on the angle of the particle trajectory. Such non-uniform reconstruction directly affects the performance of the particle identification algorithms which infer particle type from calorimetric measurements. This work presents a new particle identification method which accounts for and effectively addresses such non-uniformity. The newly developed method shows improved performance compared to previous algorithms, illustrated by a 93.7% proton selection efficiency and a 10% muon mis-identification rate, with a fairly loose selection of tracks performed on beam data. The performance is further demonstrated by identifying exclusive final states in ν μ CC interactions. While developed using MicroBooNE data and simulation, this method is easily applicable to future LArTPC experiments, such as SBND, ICARUS, and DUNE.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗