Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• A data-driven method to estimate the antiproton background in Mu2e

  Namitha Chithirasreemadam, Simone Donati, Pavel Murat, on behalf of the Mu2e collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 17, 025 (2025) · published 23 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Mu2e experiment will search for the CLFV process of neutrinoless, coherent conversion of muon to electron in the field of an Al nucleus. One of the expected backgrounds is antiprotons produced by the proton beam at the Production Target and annihilating in the Stopping Target to produce signal-like electrons. Although not a dominant background, it has a large uncertainty and cannot be suppressed by the timing cuts used to reduce the prompt background. However, at Mu2e energies, $p\bar{p}$ annihilation is the only source of events with multiple, simultaneous particles coming from the Stopping Target. We utilized this unique feature and developed a novel approach to reconstruct multi-track events and estimate the antiproton background.

• Catalogue of phonon modes in several cuprate high-temperature superconductors from density functional theory

  Noah J. Jabusch, Pavan Dayal, Alexander F. Kemper

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 018 (2023) · published 23 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Cuprates are promising candidates for study in developing higher temperature superconductors. A thorough understanding of a material's phonon modes enables further investigation of its emergent properties, however, no complete reference of the phonon modes exists. Here, using density functional theory, we evaluate the phonon frequencies and atomic displacements for $\text{La}_2\text{CuO}_4$, $\text{Bi}_2\text{Sr}_2\text{CuO}_6$, and $\text{Bi}_2\text{Sr}_2\text{CaCu}_2\text{O}_8$, in their tetragonal structures. The phonon modes for all materials agree with those expected from space group symmetry and display instabilities corresponding to known low-temperature structural phase transitions.

• Strong CP problem, electric dipole moment, and fate of the axion

  Gerrit Schierholz

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 6, 011 (2022) · published 31 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Three hard problems! In this talk I investigate the long-distance properties of quantum chromodynamics in the presence of a topological theta term. This is done on the lattice, using the gradient flow to isolate the long-distance modes in the functional integral measure and tracing it over successive length scales. It turns out that the color fields produced by quarks and gluons are screened, and confinement is lost, for vacuum angles |theta| > 0, thus providing a natural solution of the strong CP problem. This solution is compatible with recent lattice calculations of the electric dipole moment of the neutron, while it excludes the axion extension of the Standard Model.

• Trials factor for semi-supervised NN classifiers in searches for narrow resonances at the LHC

  Benjamin Lieberman, Salah-Eddine Dahbi, Andreas Crivellin, Finn Stevenson, Nidhi Tripathi, Mukesh Kumar, Bruce Mellado

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 073 (2024) · published 13 November 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  To mitigate the model dependencies of searches for new narrow resonances at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), semi-supervised Neural Networks (NNs) can be used. Unlike fully supervised classifiers these models introduce an additional look-elsewhere effect in the process of optimising thresholds on the response distribution. We perform a frequentist study to quantify this effect, in the form of a trials factor. As an example, we consider simulated $Z\gamma$ data to perform narrow resonance searches using semi-supervised NN classifiers. The results from this analysis provide substantiation that the look-elsewhere effect induced by the semi-supervised NN is under control.

• Photon-photon fusion and tau g-2 measurement in ATLAS

  Agnieszka Ogrodnik

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 15, 003 (2024) · published 2 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Relativistic heavy-ion beams at the LHC are accompanied by a large flux of equivalent photons. New measurements of exclusive dilepton production (electron, muon, and tau pairs) performed by the ATLAS experiment are discussed. We present the photon-induced production of tau pairs and constraints on the tau lepton's anomalous magnetic dipole moment. In addition, measurements of photon-induced electron and muon pair production are presented, which provide strong constraints on the nuclear photon flux and its dependence on the impact parameter and photon energy. Forward neutrons are utilised to provide an experimental handle on the impact parameter range sampled in the events.

• Anisotropic ionization threshold and directional sensitivity in solid state DM detectors

  Matti Heikinheimo, Sebastian Sassi, Kimmo Tuominen, Kai Nordlund, Nader Mirabolfathi

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 020 (2023) · published 3 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The threshold displacement energy for nuclear recoils depends strongly on the direction of the recoiling nucleus with respect to the crystal lattice. Assuming that similar dependence holds for the ionization threshold for low energy nuclear recoils, we explore the consequences of the resulting directional dependence of the observable event rate in ionization detectors. For low mass dark matter, this effect leads to a daily modulation in the event rate. We discuss how this effect can be utilized to separate the DM signal from the solar neutrino background and how the structure of the modulation signal can be used to identify the type of the DM-nucleon coupling.

• The CYGNO/INITIUM experiment

  F. D. Amaro, E. Baracchini, L. Benussi , S. Bianco, C. Capoccia, M. Caponero, D. Santos Cardoso, G. Cavoto, A. Cortez, I. A. Costa, E. Dané, G. Dho, F. Di Giambattista, E. Di Marco, G. D’Imperio, F. Iacoangeli, H. P. L. Jùnior, G. S. P. Lopes, G. Maccarrone, R. D. P. Mano, R. R. M. Gregorio, D. J. G. Marques, G. Mazzitelli, A. G. McLean, A. Messina, C. M. B. Monteiro, R. A. Nobrega, I. Fonseca Pains, E. Paoletti, L. Passamonti, S. Pelosi, F. Petrucci, S. Piacentini, D. Piccolo, D. Pierluigi, D. Pinci, A. Prajapati, F. Renga, R. J. C. Roque, F. Rosatelli, A. Russo, J. M. F. dos Santos, G. Saviano, N. J. C. Spooner, R. Tesauro, S. Tommasini, S. Torelli

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 019 (2023) · published 3 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The CYGNO project for the development of a high precision optical readout gaseous TPC for directional Dark Matter search and solar neutrino spectroscopy will be presented. It is to be hosted at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. CYGNO peculiar features are the use of sCMOS cameras and PMTs coupled to GEMs amplification of a helium-based gas mixture at atmospheric pressure, in order to achieve 3D tracking with head tail capability and background rejection down to O(keV) energy, to boost sensitivity to low WIMP masses. The latest R&D results within the CYGNO project will be discussed along with the underground installation and operation of a 50 l prototype, soon to be followed by a O(1) m3 experiment demonstrator in 2024-2026. The latest results on the negative ion drift operation at atmospheric pressure within CYGNO optical readout approach will be illustrated, which is the aim of the ERC Consolidator Grant project INITIUM.

• Field-induced local Fermi-liquid states in the underscreened Kondo model for Eu compounds

  Shingo Kuniyoshi, Ryousuke Shiina

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 11, 015 (2023) · published 6 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We have studied an underscreened Kondo model for the impurity spin $S=7/2$ capturing the $4f$ characteristics of a nearly divalent Eu ion. By using the numerical renormalization group method, it is shown that an unusual heavy-fermion state is induced from the underscreened spin state when a weak crystal field is introduced. It is also found that the application of the magnetic field enhances the effective mass of the heavy fermions, reflecting the field-induced level crossing of the spin states. We will discuss the mechanism of these mass enhancements in terms of a realization of the two-stage Kondo effect.

• An alternative evaluation of the leading-order hadronic contribution to the muon $g-2$ with MUonE

  Riccardo N. Pilato

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 17, 024 (2025) · published 23 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The MUonE experiment proposes a novel approach to determine the hadronic contribution to the muon $g-2$, $a_\mu^\text{HLO}$, based on the measurement of the hadronic running of the QED coupling through the analysis of $\mu-e$ elastic scattering events. This could clarify the tensions in the current evaluations of $a_\mu^\text{HLO}$, which are limiting the comparison between theory and experiment for the muon $g-2$. The measurement will be performed at CERN’s North Area by scattering a 160 GeV muon beam on the atomic electrons of a low-Z target. The status and future plans of the experiment will be presented. Furthermore, an alternative method to extract $a_\mu^\text{HLO}$ from MUonE data will be discussed.

• Few-nucleon system dynamics studied via deuteron-deuteron collisions at 160 MeV

  I. Ciepał , K. Bodek, N. Kalantar-Nayestanaki , G. Khatri , St. Kistryn , B. Kłos, A. Kozela , J. Kuboś, P. Kulessa , A. Łobejko, A. Magiera , J. Messchendorp , I. Mazumdar, W. Parol , R. Ramazani-Sharifabadi, D. Rozpędzik , I. Skwira-Chalot , E. Stephan, A. Wilczek , B. Włoch, A. Wrońska , J. Zejma

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 3, 018 (2020) · published 25 February 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Four nucleon scattering at intermediate energies provides unique opportunities to study effects of the two key ingredients of the nuclear dynamics, the nucleon-nucleon P-wave (NNP-wave) and the three-nucleon force (3NF). This is possible only with systematic and precise data, in conjunction with exact theoretical calculations. Using the BINA detector at KVI Groningen, the Netherlands, a rich set of differential cross section of the 2H(d, dp)n breakup reaction at 160 MeV deuteron beam energy has been measured. Besides the three-body breakup, also cross sections of the 2H(d, 3He)n proton transfer reaction have been obtained. The data are compared to the recent calculations for the three-cluster breakup.