59 research outputs found
Defalcation of European Union Budget in the Romanian Criminal Law
No full textOne of the goals for Romania, after the 1st January 2007, was to protect the financial interests of the European Union to fight against fraud, corruption and other illegal activities. In order to achieve this target, the legal framework has been completed by the Law no. 161/2003 which introduced the article no. 182 in the text of the Law no. 78/2000 regarding prevention, discovery and punishing the corruption acts. The author analyses this new article and he develops the two constitutive elements (actus reus, mens rea), the objective and subjective aspects of the analyzed crime, the ways, the legal punishments applicable to this crime.fraud, financial interests, spending, incomes, actus reus, mens rea, legal punishments.
Carbon sequestration in an expanding lake system during the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event
No full textThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via the DOI in this record.The Early Jurassic Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (~183 Ma) was marked by
marine anoxia–euxinia and globally significant organic-matter burial,
accompanied by a major global carbon-cycle perturbation probably linked to
Karoo-Ferrar volcanism. Although the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event is well
studied in the marine realm, accompanying climatic and environmental change
on the continents is poorly understood. Here, utilizing radiometric, palynological
and geochemical data from lacustrine black shales, we demonstrate that a major
lake system developed contemporaneously with the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic
Event in the Sichuan Basin, China, likely due to enhanced hydrological cycling
under elevated atmospheric pCO2. Coeval accelerated organic-carbon burial in
both marine and lacustrine basins suggests nutrient delivery as the prime cause
for global carbon-cycle recovery during the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event.
Increased lacustrine organic productivity from elevated fluvial nutrient supply
resulted in the burial of ~460 Gt of organic carbon in the Sichuan Basin alone,
creating an important negative feedback in the global exogenic carbon cycle,
which significantly shortened the global δ13C recoveryShell International Exploration & Production B.V. is
acknowledged for financial support for this study. D.S. acknowledges the Total
endowment fund. R.D.P. and B.D.A.N. acknowledge funding from the advanced ERC
grant “the greenhouse earth system” (T-GRES, project reference 340923).Shell International Exploration & Production B.V. is acknowledged for financial support for this study. D.S. acknowledges the Total endowment fund. R.D.P. and B.D.A.N. acknowledge funding from the advanced ERC grant ‘the greenhouse earth system’ (T-GRES, project reference 340923). All authors thank Shell Global Solutions International B.V., Shell China Exploration & Production Co. Ltd, and PetroChina Southwest Oil and Gasfield Company for approval to publish this study. J.B.R. publishes with the approval of the Executive Director, British Geological Survey (NERC). CGG Robertson and Shell are acknowledged for providing the palaeogeographic reconstruction used in Fig. 1. T.-R. Jiang, M. Dransfield and X.-Y. Li (Shell China Exploration and Production Co. Ltd), O. Podlaha, S. v. d. Boorn (Shell Global Solutions International B.V.), Q. Zeng and Z. Tang (PetroChina Southwest Oil and Gasfield Company) and B. Levell (University of Oxford) are acknowledged for discussions and reviews of earlier versions of the manuscript and for providing sample materials. We also thank reviewers D. Kemp and G. Suan for comments and suggestions that have greatly improved this manuscript. This paper is also a contribution to UNESCO-IUGS IGCP Project 632
The Legal Nature of Public Servant’s Duty Relationship
No full textThe public servant’s duty relationship results from the administrative appointment deed. The public servant is a bearer of public function, that he exercises to the extent of his function; he is an agent of public power: an institution of public law; it is bounded by the regulations especially provided by the Constitution, by the Law no. 188/1999, as further republished, by other administrative law regulations and only in completion by labour law regulations, only to the extent in which they do not disagree with the legislation specific to public function.duty relationship, authority administrative deed, public law contract, administrative contract, public function contractualization.
Refining the global branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (brGDGT) soil temperature calibration
No full textThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) are increasingly used to
reconstruct past terrestrial temperature and soil pH. Here we compare all available
modern soil brGDGT data (n=350) to a wide range of environmental parameters to
obtain new global temperature calibrations.
We show that soil moisture index (MI), a modeled parameter that also takes
potential evapotranspiration into account, is correlated to the 6-methyl brGDGT
distribution but does not significantly control the distribution of 5-methyl brGDGTs.
Instead, temperature remains the primary control on 5-methyl brGDGTs. We propose the following global calibrations: MAAT soil = 40.01 x MBT’5me − 15.25 (n=350, R2 22 = 23 0.60, RMSE = 5.3 °C) and growing degree days above freezing (GDD0 soil) = 14344.3 x MBT’5me - 4997.5 (n=350, R2 24 = 0.63, RMSE = 1779 °C).
Recent studies have suggested that factors other than temperature can impact
arid and/or alkaline soils dominated by 6-methyl brGDGTs. As such, we develop new
global temperature calibrations using samples dominated by 5-methyl brGDGTs only
(IR6me<0.5). These new calibrations have significantly improved correlation
coefficients and lower root mean square errors (RMSE) compared to the global
calibrations: MAATsoil’ = 39.09 x !"#!!"
! − 14.50 (n=177, R2 30 = 0.76, RMSE =
4.1 °C) and GDD0 soil’ = 13498.8 x !"#!!"
! − 4444.5 (n=177, R2 31 = 0.78, RMSE =
1326). We suggest that these new calibrations should be used to reconstruct terrestrial
climate in the geological past; however, care should be taken when employing these
calibrations outside the modern calibration rangThis research was funded through the advanced ERC grant `The greenhouse earth
412 system' (T-GRES, project reference 340923). R.D.P. acknowledges the Royal Society
413 Wolfson Research Merit Award
North Atlantic forcing of tropical Indian Ocean climate
No full textAuthor Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature 509 (2014): 76-80, doi:10.1038/nature13196.The response of the tropical climate in the Indian Ocean realm to abrupt
climate change events in the North Atlantic Ocean is contentious.
Repositioning of the intertropical convergence zone is thought to have been
responsible for changes in tropical hydroclimate during North Atlantic cold
spells1–5, but the dearth of high-resolution records outside the monsoon realm
in the Indian Ocean precludes a full understanding of this remote relationship
and its underlying mechanisms. Here we show that slowdowns of the Atlantic
meridional overturning circulation during Heinrich stadials and the Younger
Dryas stadial affected the tropical Indian Ocean hydroclimate through changes
to the Hadley circulation including a southward shift in the rising branch (the
intertropical convergence zone) and an overall weakening over the southern
Indian Ocean. Our results are based on new, high-resolution sea surface
temperature and seawater oxygen isotope records of well dated sedimentary
archives from the tropical eastern Indian Ocean for the past 45,000 years,
combined with climate model simulations of Atlantic circulation slowdown
under Marine Isotope Stages 2 and 3 boundary conditions. Similar conditions
in the east and west of the basin rule out a zonal dipole structure as the
dominant forcing of the tropical Indian Ocean hydroclimate of millennial-scale
events. Results from our simulations and proxy data suggest dry conditions in
the northern Indian Ocean realm and wet and warm conditions in the southern
realm during North Atlantic cold spells.This study was funded by the German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
(grant 03G0189A) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG grants
HE3412/15-1 and STE1044/4-1, and the DFG Research Centre/Cluster of Excellence
‘The Ocean in the Earth System’). D.W.O. is funded by the US NSF, R.D.P.-H. is supported by
Chilean FONDAP 15110009/ICM Nucleus NC120066.2014-10-3
Corrigendum to “Zechstein main Dolomite oil characteristics in the Southern Permian Basin: I. Polish and German sectors” [JMPG 93 (May 2018) 356–375]
No full textThe authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused in the below corrections. Correction 1: A new affiliation “b Polish Geological Institute, ul. Rakowiecka 4, 00–975 Warszawa, Poland” is added to the author group. Correction 2: Revised acknowledgement. Acknowledgements: We dedicate this paper to the memory of Dr Cezary Grelowski (†), an excellent petroleum geochemist. After finishing his studies he worked in the Piła Branch of the Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG SA) for the rest of his life. Being fascinated with his work and new geochemical concepts, Cezary was a fantastic partner in the field and laboratory. Having a predisposition to scientific work he would approach difficult problems with unconventionally disputing the erudition and profound knowledge of the matter. Dr Cezary Grelowski was a cordial, obliging, friendly person, and remained an optimist, never despairing in his work on his passion – organic geochemistry! His credo was knowledge, hard work and helpfulness, till the end, and as such a person he will remain in our memory. We also dedicate this paper to Dr Franz Kockel (†), for his outstanding and successful engagement for developing collaboration between geoscientists from the Central European Basin area. Understanding geology is only possible in a holistic way – a basic principle exemplified by Franz Kockel. It was his heartfelt wish to share his experience in regional geology with colleagues from neighbouring countries, especially from Central Europe. Some crude oil samples (Poland) were kindly obtained from GeoMark Research (Houston). Shell Exploration and Production is thanked for partial financial support and ENGIE for permission to publish the results. The study of some Polish oils has also been financially supported by a statutory research project (no. 11.11.140.626) granted by the AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków. We thank Jürgen Poggenburg for discussion, Monika Weiβ, Adam Kowalski, James Williams and Alison Kuhl for help with instruments and Andrzej Gąsiewicz for suggestions. We also wish to thank the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK, for partial funding of the mass spectrometry facilities at Bristol (contract no. R8/H10/63). Finally, we acknowledge constructive and helpful comments of an associate editor Barry J. Katz, Benedikt Lerch, Joseph Curiale and two anonymous reviewers, which improved the quality of our manuscript. M.S. was supported by a Mobility Plus programme post-doctoral fellowship of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (no. DPN/MOB20/I/2011). R.D.P. acknowledges the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (UK). Correction 3: Revised Fig. 9. [Figure presented]</p
Low-diffusion Xe-He gas mixtures for rare-event detection: electroluminescence yield
No full text[EN] High pressure xenon Time Projection Chambers (TPC) based on secondary scintillation (electroluminescence) signal amplification are being proposed for rare event detection such as directional dark matter, double electron capture and double beta decay detection. The discrimination of the rare event through the topological signature of primary ionisation trails is a major asset for this type of TPC when compared to single liquid or double-phase TPCs, limited mainly by the high electron diffusion in pure xenon. Helium admixtures with xenon can be an attractive solution to reduce the electron diffu- sion significantly, improving the discrimination efficiency of these optical TPCs. We have measured the electroluminescence (EL) yield of Xe-He mixtures, in the range of 0 to 30% He and demonstrated the small impact on the EL yield of the addition of helium to pure xenon. For a typical reduced electric field of 2.5 kV/cm/bar in the EL region, the EL yield is lowered by similar to 2%, 3%, 6% and 10% for 10%, 15%, 20% and 30% of helium concentration, respectively. This decrease is less than what has been obtained from the most recent simulation framework in the literature. The impact of the addition of helium on EL statistical fluctuations is negligible, within the experimental uncertainties. The present results are an important benchmark for the simulation tools to be applied to future optical TPCs based on Xe-He mixtures.The NEXT Collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreements No. 674896, 690575 and 740055; the Ministerio de Economa y Competitividad of Spain under grants FIS2014-53371-C04, RTI2018-095979, the Severo Ochoa Program SEV-2014-0398 and the Mara de Maetzu Program MDM-2016-0692; the GVA of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2016/120 and SEJI/2017/011; the Portuguese FCT under project PTDC/FIS-NUC/2525/2014, under project UID/FIS/04559/2013 to fund the activities of LIBPhys, and under grants PD/BD/105921/2014, SFRH/BPD/109180/2015; the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts number DEAC02-06CH11357 (Argonne National Laboratory), DE-AC0207CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A& M) and DE-SC0019223/DESC0019054 (University of Texas at Arlington); and the University of Texas at Arlington. DGD acknowledges Ramon y Cajal program (Spain) under contract number RYC-2015-18820. We also warmly acknowledge the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) and the Dark Side collaboration for their help with TPB coating of various parts of the NEXT-White TPC. Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc for hosting and supporting the NEXT experiment.Fernandes, A.; Henriques, C.; Mano, R.; González-Díaz, D.; Azevedo, C.; Silva, P.; Gómez-Cadenas, J.... (2020). Low-diffusion Xe-He gas mixtures for rare-event detection: electroluminescence yield. Journal of High Energy Physics (Online). (4):1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2020)034S1184D.R. Nygren, Columnar recombination: a tool for nuclear recoil directional sensitivity in a xenon-based direct detection WIMP search, J. Phys. Conf. Ser.460 (2013) 012006 [INSPIRE].G. Mohlabeng et al., Dark matter directionality revisited with a high pressure xenon gas detector, JHEP07 (2015) 092 [arXiv:1503.03937] [INSPIRE].N.S. Phan, R.J. Lauer, E.R. Lee, D. Loomba, J.A.J. Matthews and E.H. Miller, GEM-based TPC with CCD Imaging for Directional Dark Matter Detection, Astropart. Phys.84 (2016) 82 [arXiv:1510.02170] [INSPIRE].J. Martin-Albo et al., Sensitivity of NEXT-100 to neutrinoless double beta decay, JHEP05 (2016) 159 [arXiv:1511.09246] [INSPIRE].K. Nakamura et al., AXEL — a high pressure xenon gas TPC for neutrinoless double beta decay search, Nucl. Instrum. Meth.A 845 (2017) 394 [INSPIRE].D. Yu. Akimov, A.A. Burenkov, V.F. Kuzichev, V.L. Morgunov and V.N. Solovev, Low background experiments with high pressure gas scintillation proportional detector, physics/9704021 [INSPIRE].Yu. M. Gavrilyuk et al., A technique for searching for the 2K capture in124Xe with a copper proportional counter, Phys. Atom. Nucl.78 (2015) 1563 [INSPIRE].Yu. M. Gavrilyuk et al., Results of In-Depth Analysis of Data Obtained in the Experimental Search for 2K (2ν)-Capture in78Kr, Phys. Part. Nucl.49 (2018) 540 [INSPIRE].C.A.N. Conde and A.J.P.L. Policarpo, A Gas Proportional Scintillation Counter, Nucl. Instrum. Meth.53 (1967) 7.A.J.P.L. Policarpo, M.A.F. Alves and C.A.N. Conde, The Argon-Nitrogen Proportional Scintillation Counter, Nucl. Instrum. Meth.55 (1967) 105.J.M.F. dos Santos et al., Development of portable gas proportional scintillation counters for x-ray spectrometry, X-Ray Spectrom.30 (2001) 373.NEXT collaboration, Accurate γ and MeV-electron track reconstruction with an ultra-low diffusion Xenon/TMA TPC at 10 atm, Nucl. Instrum. Meth.A 804 (2015) 8 [arXiv:1504.03678] [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, Characterisation of NEXT-DEMO using xenon KαX-rays, 2014 JINST9 P10007 [arXiv:1407.3966] [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, Energy calibration of the NEXT-White detector with 1% resolution near Qββof136Xe, JHEP10 (2019) 230 [arXiv:1905.13110] [INSPIRE].R. Lüscher et al., Search for beta beta decay in Xe-136: New results from the Gotthard experiment, Phys. Lett.B 434 (1998) 407 [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, First proof of topological signature in the high pressure xenon gas TPC with electroluminescence amplification for the NEXT experiment, JHEP01 (2016) 104 [arXiv:1507.05902] [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, Background rejection in NEXT using deep neural networks, 2017 JINST12 T01004 [arXiv:1609.06202] [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, The Next White (NEW) Detector, 2018 JINST13 P12010 [arXiv:1804.02409] [INSPIRE].H. Qiao et al., Signal-background discrimination with convolutional neural networks in the PandaX-III experiment using MC simulation, Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron.61 (2018) 101007 [arXiv:1802.03489] [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, Secondary scintillation yield of xenon with sub-percent levels of CO2additive for rare-event detection, Phys. Lett.B 773 (2017) 663 [arXiv:1704.01623] [INSPIRE].C.M.B. Monteiro et al., Secondary Scintillation Yield in Pure Xenon, 2007 JINST2 P05001 [physics/0702142] [INSPIRE].C.M.B. Monteiro, J.A.M. Lopes, J.F. C.A. Veloso and J.M.F. dos Santos, Secondary scintillation yield in pure argon, Phys. Lett.B 668 (2008) 167 [INSPIRE].C.A.B. Oliveira et al., A simulation toolkit for electroluminescence assessment in rare event experiments, Phys. Lett.B 703 (2011) 217 [arXiv:1103.6237] [INSPIRE].E.D.C. Freitas et al., Secondary scintillation yield in high-pressure xenon gas for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) search, Phys. Lett.B 684 (2010) 205 [INSPIRE].C.M.B. Monteiro et al., Secondary scintillation yield from gaseous micropattern electron multipliers in direct dark matter detection, Phys. Lett.B 677 (2009) 133 [INSPIRE].C.M.B. Monteiro, L.M.P. Fernandes, J.F. C.A. Veloso, C.A.B. Oliveira and J.M.F. dos Santos, Secondary scintillation yield from GEM and THGEM gaseous electron multipliers for direct dark matter search, Phys. Lett.B 714 (2012) 18 [INSPIRE].C. Balan et al., MicrOMEGAs operation in high pressure xenon: Charge and scintillation readout, 2011 JINST6 P02006 [arXiv:1009.2960] [INSPIRE].C.M.B. Monteiro, L.M.P. Fernandes, J.F. C.A. Veloso and J.M.F. dos Santos, Secondary scintillation readout from GEM and THGEM with a large area avalanche photodiode, 2012 JINST7 P06012 [INSPIRE].C.D.R. Azevedo et al., An homeopathic cure to pure Xenon large diffusion, 2016 JINST11 C02007 [arXiv:1511.07189] [INSPIRE].C.D.R. Azevedo et al., Microscopic simulation of xenon-based optical TPCs in the presence of molecular additives, Nucl. Intrum. Meth.A 877 (2018) 157 [arXiv:1705.09481] [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, Electroluminescence TPCs at the Thermal Diffusion Limit, JHEP01 (2019) 027 [arXiv:1806.05891] [INSPIRE].R.C. Lanza et al., Gas scintillators for imaging of low energy isotopes, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.34 (1987) 406.R. Felkai et al., Helium-Xenon mixtures to improve the topological signature in high pressure gas xenon TPCs, Nucl. Intrum. Meth.A 905 (2018) 82 [arXiv:1710.05600] [INSPIRE].NEXT collaboration, Electron Drift and Longitudinal Diffusion in High Pressure Xenon-Helium Gas Mixtures, 2019 JINST14 P08009 [arXiv:1902.05544] [INSPIRE].J.A.M. Lopes et al., A xenon gas proportional scintillation counter with a UV-sensitive large-area avalanche photodiode, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.48 (2001) 312.C.M.B. Monteiro et al., An argon gas proportional scintillation counter with UV avalanche photodiode scintillation readout, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.48 (2001) 1081.Advanced Photonix, Inc., 1240 Avenida Acaso, Camarillo, CA 93012, U.S.A. .L.M.P. Fernandes et al., Characterization of large area avalanche photodiodes in X-ray and VUV-light detection, 2007 JINST2 P08005 [physics/0702130] [INSPIRE].L.M.P. Fernandes, E.D.C. Freitas, M. Ball, J.J. Gomez-Cadenas, C.M.B. Monteiro, N. Yahlali et al., Primary and secondary scintillation measurements in a xenon Gas Proportional Scintillation Counter, 2010 JINST5 P09006 [Erratum ibid.5 (2010) A12001] [arXiv:1009.2719] [INSPIRE].C.A.B. Oliveira, M. Sorel, J. Martin-Albo, J.J. Gomez-Cadenas, A.L. Ferreira and J.F. C.A. Veloso, Energy Resolution studies for NEXT, 2011 JINST6 P05007 [arXiv:1105.2954] [INSPIRE].D.F. Anderson et al., A large area, gas scintillation proportional counter, Nucl. Instrum. Meth.163 (1979) 125.T.Z. Kowalski et al., Fano factor implications from gas scintillation proportional counter measurements, Nucl. Instrum. Meth.A 279 (1989) 567.T. Doke, Basic properties of high pressure xenon gas as detector medium, in Proceedings of the XeSAT, Tokyo Japan (2005), pg. 92.S.J.C. do Carmo et al., Experimental Study of the ω-Values and Fano Factors of Gaseous Xenon and Ar-Xe Mixtures for X-Rays, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.55 (2008) 2637.A. Buzulutskov, E. Shemyakina, A. Bondar, A. Dolgov, E. Frolov, V. Nosov et al., Revealing neutral bremsstrahlung in two-phase argon electroluminescence, Astropart. Phys.103 (2018) 29 [arXiv:1803.05329] [INSPIRE]
Demonstration of background rejection using deep convolutional neural networks in the NEXT experiment
No full textConvolutional neural networks (CNNs) are widely used state-of-the-art computer
vision tools that are becoming increasingly popular in high-energy physics. In this
paper, we attempt to understand the potential of CNNs for event classification in the
NEXT experiment, which will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 136Xe. To do
so, we demonstrate the usage of CNNs for the identification of electron-positron pair production
events, which exhibit a topology similar to that of a neutrinoless double-beta decay event. These events were produced in the NEXT-White high-pressure xenon TPC using
2.6MeV gamma rays from a 228Th calibration source. We train a network on Monte Carlosimulated
events and show that, by applying on-the-fly data augmentation, the network
can be made robust against differences between simulation and data. The use of CNNs
offers significant improvement in signal efficiency and background rejection when compared
to previous non-CNN-based analyses.This study used computing resources from Artemisa, co-funded by the European Union
through the 2014-2020 FEDER Operative Programme of the Comunitat Valenciana, project
DIFEDER/2018/048. This research used resources of the Argonne Leadership Computing
Facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported under Contract
DE-AC02-06CH11357. The NEXT collaboration acknowledges support from the following
agencies and institutions: Xunta de Galicia (Centro singularde investigación de Galicia
accreditation 2019-2022), by European Union ERDF, and by the “María de Maeztu” Units
of Excellence program MDM-2016-0692 and the Spanish Research State Agency”; the European
Research Council (ERC) under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the European
Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under
the Grant Agreements No. 674896, 690575 and 740055; the Ministerio de Economía y
Competitividad and the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades of Spain under
grants FIS2014-53371-C04, RTI2018-095979, the Severo Ochoa Program grants SEV-2014-
0398 and CEX2018-000867-S; the GVA of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2016/120 and SEJI/2017/011; the Portuguese FCT under project PTDC/FIS- NUC/2525/2014 and under
projects UID/FIS/04559/2020 to fund the activities of LIBPhys-UC; the U.S. Department
of Energy under contracts number DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M) and DE-SC0019223/DE SC0019054
(University of Texas at Arlington); and the University of Texas at Arlington. DGD acknowledges
Ramon y Cajal program (Spain) under contract number RYC-2015 18820. JMA
acknowledges support from Fundación Bancaria “la Caixa” (ID 100010434), grant code
LCF/BQ/PI19/11690012. We also warmly acknowledge the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran
Sasso (LNGS) and the Dark Side collaboration for their help with TPB coating of various
parts of the NEXT-White TPC. Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterráneo
de Canfranc for hosting and supporting the NEXT experiment
Measurement of radon-induced backgrounds in the NEXT double beta decay experiment
No full textThe measurement of the internal 222Rn activity in the NEXT-White detector during the so-called Run-II period with 136Xe-depleted xenon is discussed in detail, together with its implications for double beta decay searches in NEXT. The activity is measured through the alpha production rate induced in the fiducial volume by 222Rn and its alpha-emitting progeny. The specific activity is measured to be (38.1 ± 2.2 (stat.) ± 5.9 (syst.)) mBq/m3. Radon-induced electrons have also been characterized from the decay of the 214Bi daughter ions plating out on the cathode of the time projection chamber. From our studies, we conclude that radon-induced backgrounds are sufficiently low to enable a successful NEXT-100 physics program, as the projected rate contribution should not exceed 0.1 counts/yr in the neutrinoless double beta decay sample.The NEXT Collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions:
the European Research Council (ERC) under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the
European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-
2020) under the Marie Sk lodowska-Curie Grant Agreements No. 674896, 690575 and 740055;
the Ministerio de Econom a y Competitividad of Spain under grants FIS2014-53371-C04, the
Severo Ochoa Program SEV-2014-0398 and the Mar a de Maetzu Program MDM-2016-0692;
the GVA of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2016/120 and SEJI/2017/011; the Portuguese
FCT and FEDER through the program COMPETE, projects PTDC/FIS-NUC/2525/2014
and UID/FIS/04559/2013; the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts number DEAC02-
07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas
A&M) and DE-SC0017721 (University of Texas at Arlington); the University of Texas
at Arlington; and the Foundation for Polish Science (Grant No. TEAM/2016-2/17). We
also warmly acknowledge the Laboratorio Nazionale di Gran Sasso (LNGS) and the Dark
Side collaboration for their help with TPB coating of various parts of the NEXT-White
TPC. Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterr aneo de Canfranc for hosting and
supporting the NEXT experiment
NEXT-CRAB-0: a high pressure gaseous xenon time projection chamber with a direct VUV camera based readout
No full textThe search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0) remains one of the most compelling
experimental avenues for the discovery in the neutrino sector. Electroluminescent gas-phase
time projection chambers are well suited to 0 searches due to their intrinsically precise energy
resolution and topological event identification capabilities. Scalability to ton- and multi-ton masses
requires readout of large-area electroluminescent regions with fine spatial resolution, low radiogenic
backgrounds, and a scalable data acquisition system. This paper presents a detector prototype
that records event topology in an electroluminescent xenon gas TPC via VUV image-intensified
cameras. This enables an extendable readout of large tracking planes with commercial devices that
reside almost entirely outside of the active medium. Following further development in intermediate
scale demonstrators, this technique may represent a novel and enlargeable method for topological
event imaging in 0.This work was supported by the US Department of Energy under awards DE-SC0019054 and DESC0019223, the US National Science Foundation under award number NSF CHE 2004111 and the Robert A Welch Foundation under award number Y-2031-20200401 (University of Texas Arlington). FJS was supported by the DOE Nuclear Physics Traineeship Program award DE-SC0022359. The NEXT Collaboration also acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under Grant Agreement No. 951281-BOLD; the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014–2020) under Grant Agreement No. 957202-HIDDEN; the MCIN/AEI of Spain and ERDF A way of making Europe under grants RTI2018-095979 and PID2021-125475NB , the Severo Ochoa Program grant CEX2018-000867-S and the Ramón y Cajal program grant RYC-2015-18820; the Generalitat Valenciana of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2021/087 and CIDEGENT/2019/049; the Department of Education of the Basque Government of Spain under the predoctoral training program nondoctoral research personnel; the Portuguese FCT under project UID/FIS/04559/2020 to fund the activities of LIBPhys-UC; the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) under grant 1223/21; the Pazy Foundation (Israel) under grants 310/22, 315/19 and 465; the US Department of Energy under contracts number DE-AC02-06CH11357 (Argonne National Laboratory), DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M). Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc for hosting and supporting the NEXT experiment
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