2017

2017/12/05 - Prof. Francesco Arneodo participates in the first meeting of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Academy of Scientists

On December 5th, Prof. Arneodo participated in the first meeting of the  Mohammed Bin Rashid Academy of Scientist, which was held in Dubai, in the beautiful venue of the Etihad Museum. The meeting was chaired by Science Minister Sara Amiri, and honoured by the presence of HH Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid, who gave two prizes to Emirati scientists. The main goal of the meeting was to discuss the challenges of research that UAE scientists are facing and to provide solutions. From NYUAD, two representatives were present, Prof. Naumov and Prof. Arneodo. They both participated in the `Natural Science’ panel.

2017/11/20 - Prof. Francesco Arneodo Participates in UNOOSA Workshop

Prof. Francesco Arneodo was invited to speak at the United Nations / Italy Workshop on the Open Universe Initiative, where the ambitious project of making all space science data available (and usable) to the public has been discussed. Prof. Arneodo presented his talk titled, “Open Data and Space Science in the UAE” which discusses the possible options for NYUAD to be involved in this far-reaching initiative.

Speaking at the UN headquarters in Vienna was a quite an exciting privilege for Prof. Arneodo.

On the evening of November 20th, Prof. Arneodo, along with other leading scientists of Italy (Roberto Battiston, Paolo Giommi, Carlotta Pittori and others), was invited to a formal dinner at the residence of the Italian Ambassador to the International Organisations in Vienna.

2017/11/15 - The Astroparticle Lab Welcomes Dr. Gianmarco Bruno

Dr. Gianmarco Bruno, formerly at Laboratori del Gran Sasso – Italy, and at the University of Munster, Germany, joined the Astroparticle Lab on November 15th.

Dr. Bruno has an extensive experience in the experimental aspects of particle physics. He has collaborated in leading experiments on neutrino physics, namely the Large Volume Detector – LVD at Gran Sasso,  and the XENON program on dark matter search.

He’s also an expert on neutron detection and on the analysis of periodicities in astroparticle experiment data.

 His expertise will be a major asset for our activities.

2017/11/09 - Guest Lecture in Professor Mazin Magzoub’s Course

Prof. Francesco Arneodo and Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni gave a guest lecture in the Core course “The 7 wonders”, showing to the class how to visualize cosmic rays particles with a 'cloud chamber'. The students seemed to be quite excited and curious.

2017/11/09 - XRF Lab Visit By Prof. Robert Parthesius and Prof. Denise Marie Teece

Prof. Robert Parthesius,  Prof. Denise Marie Teece, and Isabelle Garachon (Head of the Ceramics and Sculpture Restoration Workshop at the Rijksmuseum) visited with their students visited the Astroparticle Lab's X-Ray Fluorescence laboratory (XRF). Undergraduate Capstone student Rodrigo Torres illustrated with great expertise the physics and the process of XRF.

2017/11/01 - Guest Lecture at “Space”

Prof. Francesco Arneodo and Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni gave a guest lecture in the Core course of Prof. Dave Russell, “Space”, about cosmic rays, with a demo in the A1 Physics lab, with of course the presence of the Cosmic Ray Live Detector!

2017/10/31 - Guest Lecture at “Quantum Theory and Relativity”

If you are looking for one of the most incredible, counter-intuitive and well-tested theory ever,  please have a look at the Einstein’s special relativity. All the telecommunication systems (mobile phones, GPS) are the heritage of one of probably the most brilliant theory of the humankind. But how to prove that? Well, there are so many ways, but there is one that particle physicists like the most and that is through the detection of “muons” at ground. Muons are elementary particles are naturally generated at high quote (~10 km or more) in particle cascades induced by interactions of heavy nuclei with the Earth atmosphere (Credits Auger Collaboration).

Professor Federico Camia invited the Astroparticle Lab (and the NYUAD cosmic ray detector too) to introduce muons to his students. It has been known for quite some time now that the mean lifetime (τ) of a muon is of the order of 2.2 microseconds (0.000002196 seconds to be more practical) and that they usually travel at (almost) the speed of light (c~300000000 m/s)… So by doing very simple math, the path D of a “dying” muon is in D~τ x c ~ 657 m. In a classical framework muons are not supposed to be detected on  Earth! But thanks to the special relativity the time becomes everything but absolute, so muons simply “last longer” and we can detect them on the ground. In fact, our cosmic ray detector it’s not only a particle detector but is also a nice instrument to prove (one more time) the extraordinary validity of Special Relativity.

2017/10/19 - Astroparticle Lab’s Visit to the University of Sharjah

On October 19th, Prof. Francesco Arneodo, with Dr. Marcello Messina and capstone student Rodrigo Torres, visited colleagues of the University of Sharjah and of the American University of Sharjah. The reason for the meeting was to visit the laboratory dedicated to the cultural heritage studies at UoS. The meeting involved Prof. Nasser Hamdam of AuS, Prof. Hussain Alawadhi, of UoS, Najeh Jisrawi of UoS. Prof. Arneodo and his colleagues were very impressed by the facilities and by the activity of our colleagues.

2017/10/18 - Group Retreat

The Astroparticle Lab had one day of `retreat’ on Dec. 18th, to discuss challenges and strategies for the future. The retreat happened in one of the meeting rooms of the Library, and there was a nice break at the Vasa Vasa gelato place in Al Muneera.

The lab started discussing the status of the MOOC paper, still under review. The lab agreed to make some advertisement to the community, using the ArXiV version, and an e-mail was sent out to the DARWIN collaboration. Presently, an array with 24 MPPC is in the test chamber, and Instructor Osama Fawwaz will work on the system during the 2017 winter break.

Hamamatsu is not responding either on the technical issues that the lab has encountered on the MPPCs. It wold be nice to bargain a free sample or a heavy discount on the tile version of the VUV4, if there will be one, as it seems.

On a similar note, the PMT amplifiers have been sent to Zurich, and it may be worth considering to be there (in Zurich) to test them with Alex&c, to prevent any misuse and consequent wrong conclusions on their performance. After the test, it could be good to publish a paper. Definitely not on NIM. By the way, there might be better choices for the OpAmp?

The cryo chamber has been ordered and tests should be run at some point in Torino. A key issue will be space allocation at NYUAD.

An important aspect will be the physics program to be carried out with the system.  For sure, the lab will carry out tests for the MPPCs, but the IR exploration will be the next thing. So, the Astroparticle Lab will propose a REF “pathfinder” or whatever it’s called, to ask for money for IR sensors and possibly some xenon.

The other REF, that will be submitted by Dr. Lotfi Benabderrahmane, will be on the `outside station’. The lab has identified several physics topics and reasons why the development and maintenance of the OS could be interesting. See the picture with the mind map.

The lab has decided to go for an enrichment of the station with 'standard' gamma, neutron, E, B detectors (plus the Cherenkov), but having in mind the development of something compact that could be deployed in a harsh environment.

Finally, the lab had a wild brainstorming session, whether some ideas, maybe worth exploring, came out:

This last idea seemed the most sensible and promising, so Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni will try to contact Paola Ferrario.

The lab didn't discuss much of the following topics:

2017/10/16 - Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni goes to the Neutrino and Nuclear Physics Conference in Catania

Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni presented the lab's work in his talk titled, "A Multi-Pixel Photon Counter detector prototype for direct detection of scintillation light in liquid xenon”.

The conference registered a quite big attendance (209 scientists from all over the World) with the aim at discussing new advancements in Neutrino and Rare Events Physics (i.e. Dark Matter). Our talk was the most technical and it triggered interest to scientists participating at experiments based on the use of liquified noble gasses. We are more and more convinced that the MPPC (Multi-Pixel Photon Counter) readout technology developed at NYUAD in collaboration with Age Scientific SRL, is one of the most impressive recent advancement in light detection.

The talk delivered by Adriano is available here.

2017/10/10 - Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni gave a talk at Canadian University in Dubai

How (and Why) is it possible to detect a tiny little piece of the Universe? The talk “Interactions of particles with matter: the art of making visible the invisible” that  Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni gave at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of Canadian University of Dubai (CUD) was about the most challenging endeavor of Science in the last 100 years. Physicists, not all of them of course,  are particle hunters: they push hard the knowledge and techniques to enlighten the most elusive and pretty much invisible traces of the Universe. Big accelerators, like the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), or underground, -water, -ice facilities are the common ways to solve the puzzle.  Not to mention that this is the most beautiful job.

2017/10/04 - Guest Lecture at Instrumentation Sensors and Actuators

When Particle Physics and Space Science interact, anything can happen. The NYUAD Astroparticle Lab was involved in a CubeSat project aiming at measuring Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes. How? They built and flew a pretty compact gamma detector, with star-of-art performances. Thanks to Senior Lecturer Professor Philip, the NYUAD Astroparticle Lab was able to share the lab's activities with his “Instrument Class". Topics that were discussed were physics, particles, particle detection, and detectors. The lab really enjoyed triggering the interest from the engineering students because from time to time a new perspective can be revolutionary.

2017/09/22 to 2017/09/24 - LIDINE2017 – LIDINE 2017: Light Detection In Noble Elements

Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni attended the LIDINE workshop (held every two years) at SLAC (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) in Stanford (US). The aim of the conference was to bring together the Liquid Argon and Liquid Xenon  “communities”. The well-attended workshop was therefore extremely technical and detailed.

2017/08/15 - The Astroparticle Lab Welcomes Dr. Marcello Messina

Dr. Marcello Messina, former Research Scientist at Columbia University, and Commissioning Manager of the XENON1T Dark Matter experiment has joined our group at NYUAD, as Senior Research Scientist and Technical Coordinator of the XENONnT experiment.

He immediately took possession of the laboratory and started working on a major upgrade of our facility, a liquid xenon cryogenic system that will allow us more thorough testing of light detection devices for dark matter searches. 

2017/08/14 - Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni is the XENON1T Run Coordinator

Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni has been Run Coordinator for one month (August, 14 – September, 14). He was the first Xenon1T Run Coordinator who took care of all the data transferring and processing. He improved the offline monitoring and daily check scripts and, most important, he set the best weekly exposure for Dark Matter data taking (6.86 days, corresponding a duty cycle of 98%). Bravo!

2017/06/30 - Summer Activities – 2017

As usual, the majority of the Astroparticle Lab spent several weeks at the Gran Sasso Laboratory. One day, in particular, the lab met at Gran Sasso Science Institute. This summer, the lab brought Carlo Mussolini, a physics student from Oxford who likes to work with the lab, with them. Mussolini worked on the analysis of the data of the Gran Sasso Abu Dhabi Cosmic Ray Telescope, and in the picture below, he is explaining his approach to the analysis.

2017/06/22 - The PASCOS 2017 conference, Madrid

This week, Dr. Mohamed Lotfi Benabderrahmane, went to the PASCOS 2017 conference held in Madrid. The main topics of the conference dealt with cosmology, particle, and astroparticle physics. Most of the talks were theory oriented. Nevertheless, there were a few talks that showed some interesting results like the latest results from LIGO, from ATLAS and CMS. The latest experimental results for gravitational waves were presented by Barish, who is, as the rumor being spread around, a candidate for the physics Nobel prize in 2018.

2017/06/11 - Nominations – Ph.D. Thesis Referee and Committee Member

Prof. Francesco Arneodo has been nominated referee of the Ph. D. thesis of Francesco Piastra, University of Zurich. Prof. Arneodo has also been nominated member of the committee for the admissions to the Astroparticle Physics doctorate at GSSI.

2017/05/29 - Data taking with the Neutron Generator

The Neutron Generator (NG) we are using has two energy peaks 2.4 and 2.7MeV, it uses the D-D fusion to produce neutrons if you want to know more have a look here.

Since Tuesday we are collecting data with the NG in stable mode, actually, we have tested several configurations to be able to know which one gives the best Neutron Recoil efficiency in the TPC. We faced some computing problems that did not allow us to process the data right after they are collected.  We succeed to collect data for almost 34 hours and 30 minutes. This data will have almost 20000 Nuclear Recoil events in the TPC.

This is the first time that we run the NG and it is a success for two reasons:

2017/05/21 to 2017/05/26 - International Conference on Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics – TIPP2017

From May 21-26, 20117, Professor Francesco Arneodo and some of his Astroparticle Lab members attended TIPP2017. TIPP2017, held in Beijing (China) from 21st to 26th of May, is one of the most important events of the year: it concerns of instrumentation, detectors, data acquisition systems, innovation and techniques in particle physics. It’s was the right conference and community to show what the  Astroparticle Lab has done in the last months. The schedule followed more or less a usual pattern: plenary sessions morning-time and parallel sessions during afternoons. Plus, Poster-time during coffee breaks… So a fully packed meeting!

Before discussing what Prof. Arneodo and his lab presented, he points out what he learned. Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) are still of greatest interest for most experimentalists. Companies are improving manufacturing processes essentially limiting drawbacks (dark counting rate, crosstalk, high Quantum Efficiency (QE)  at shortest wavelengths). The most impressive progress I saw concerned the terrific development of so the called “Digital-SiPM”. A SiPM is intrinsically a quasi-digital detector: the amplitude of the signal is proportional to the number of photons detected. But still, the response is an analog output, most of the time it has to be amplified and “shipped” to the electronics readout through cables, most likely causing “the integration”, i.e. deformation, of the signal, resulting in a degradation of the carried information. A Digital-SiPM represents a new approach: the output consists of a timestamp plus the number of photons detected. In principle what you get from the detector itself it’s all you need to feed your acquisition. And this sounds like a revolution: anyway we are still in the middle of the path, but I personally think that this kind of device will bring a terrific impact in particle physics experiments, and in particular in Dark Matter search. Because yes, to look for dark matter you might want to use liquid noble gases as a target. You have to be sensitive to a “single photo-electron”, the detector must operate and survive in cryogenic conditions and hopefully in the World cleanest (from a point of view of radioactivity) environment.

Prof. Arneodo and lab members introduced to the scientific community the muon tracking detectors we built and commissioned at NYUAD. They presented characterization, performances and the unique capability of doing muon tomography of buildings and large infrastructures.

2017/05/17 - Prof. Franceco Arneodo’s Shift at the Gran Sasso Lab

Professor Francesco Arneodo started his shift at Gran Sasso on the 17th of May to participate in the shift operation. His duty during his shift was to keep the detector running 24/7 for the next two weeks. On May 17, 2017, Prof Arneodo was underground helping to run the Neutron Generator (NG). It was a marathon for him to get the green light from the lab to operate NG in safe mode that the lab requires beforehand. The NG requires being warmed up to 520 degrees before we switch on. 

It is important to write the parameters of the NG, namely the voltage and current, in a log file to be able to know the efficiency of the NG. Professor Arneodo decided to experiment with the current that controls the rate of neutrons, at the moment he was running with its nominal value which is 30kV and 0.1mA, that gives us about 40Hz around the TPC. The lab doesn't know yet what will happen to the PMTs once they switch on the NG. Therefore they will start with a rate that can give them something around the 1-2Hz rate in the TPC and then they will go higher. Of course the LED calibration should always be applied before each NG run to follow up the PMTs gains. It is the first time that the lab will perform such a Neutron calibration and it needs to be done with care. People are already ready, from all subgroups, to interfere if something goes wrong. Updates will be provided on this exciting adventure.

2017/05/08 - Minus 85

Today we got another full dewar and Valerio devised a cleverer way to place the support of the metal discs so that they are touching the box. We start operations again just before lunch, and when we reach – 56C, we realise that the contact between box and disks has been lost again, due to the thermal contraction. The problem is solved by lowering slightly the monochromator. We rapidly go down reaching -85C. Valerio and Lotfi take care of the measurements, that are dome by 15.00 or so. Tomorrow, hopefully last run with the Hamamatsu VUV4.

2017/05/07 to 2017/05/11 - Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni’s – INFN School of Statistics 2017

Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni had the opportunity to attend one of the most relevant school of statistics and tools for particle physics in the community. The School took place in Ischia (Napoli, Italy) from 7th to 11th of May 2017. Ischia is one of the most beautiful Island in the World, terrific views and outstanding sea. "The school… It was simply great" says Dr. Di Giovanni.  He suggests that if you are (going to be) a physicist, to remember these words: after the Ph.D., after n-years of Post Doc, please attend this school!

It will remind you of many things that you might have forgotten. Dr. Di Giovanni advises that he found this school to be tremendously useful. "There were several lecturers, two of them were simply the best in the market: Prof. Glenn Cowan and Prof. R. J. Barlow," Di Giovanni says, "Please take in mind that many statistical tools you would need in your scientific life are in their books and many of them come from their work too. And both of them are gentlemen: not a common feature in our field (you will see …)". The school had interactive sessions based on python and roofit. Although Di Giovanni is a Mathematica supporter, he found the ROOT addition to be very well done. He also fitted the background and two resonances (i.e., particles with a super short life) discovered in the seventies.

Anyway, Dr. Di Giovanni's message is: there are people who are more of an expert than you. This is a fact. Every time there is room to interact and talk with them, don’t waste your chance!

2017/05/07 - Starting cold operations again

With Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni gone to the School of Statistics in Ischia (lucky guy), Valerio and I start operations again with the HR11410 PMT. We have a full dewar of LN2 but it will hardly suffice for the first round of measurements.

Unfortunately, we have to stop operations with the temperature somewhere around -20C, because we realise that the PMT box is not in thermal contact with the metal discs. We’ll start again tomorrow.

2017/05/04 - Working again on the PMT – SiPM comparison

Thanks to the idea of a new set-up that allows for a direct transmission of UV light, we have begun again to take data with the monochromator,  the Hamamatsu R11410, and the silicon photomultipliers.

All goes well with the SiPM, we managed to get to the temperature we wanted with a clever use of the cold finger, but then the things get tougher with the PMT because the non-optimal vacuum we get (50 mbar) causes discharges on the voltage divider. We decided then to stop and switch to full nitrogen atmosphere (next week). Meanwhile, we start asking quotes for an additional chamber to be attached to the monochromator, which allows for a better vacuum.

2017/04/30 - Prof. Amedeo Balbi’s Talk for the International Book Fair

On April 30th, 2017, Prof Amedeo Balbi, of Rome Tor Vergata, gave a seminar on “Searching for life in the universe: how, where and why?”.

Prof Balbi was a special guest of the Italian Embassy on occasion of the International Book Fair, where he also gave a talk. On the evening of the 30th, Prof. Arneodo and Prof. Macciò, together with Balbi and Edoardo Albinati, writer, were guests of the Italian Embassy at a dinner at the St. Regis Corniche.

2017/04/16 to 2017/04/22 - Dr. Viktor Alekseenko’s NYUAD Visit

Dr. Viktor Alekseenko from the Baksan Neutrino Observatory of the Russian National Academy of Science, and Dr. Piera Ghia of CNRS, France, visited Prof. Arneodo’s group respectively from April 16th and April 19th until April 22nd. Several fruitful discussions happened with them, and notably about the analysis of periodicity in signals of neutron or cosmic rays detectors. Dr. Alekseenko also gave a seminar in the framework of the Physics Program about the role of neutron measurements in the understanding of some geophysical issues.

2017/04/02 - Lab members attended the Emirates Space Innovation Group's third meeting.

ESIG is the Emirates Space Innovation Group which was established in 2016 by the UAE Space Agency to link all space related projects together. The Astroparticle Physics lab became a member of ESIG to keep up to date with all space related activities in the country.

2017/02 - Prof. Arneodo participates in the 4th Arabian Tunnelling Conference

Francesco has participated in the 4th Arabian Tunnelling Conference, in Dubai, on February 22nd, 2017, presenting the talk “Underground Physics Laboratories”, hoping to trigger some interest in the construction of an underground laboratory in the Middle East.