Stacked searches for high-energy neutrinos from blazars with IceCube

In the year 2013, the detection of a diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux with the IceCube neutrino telescope – constructed at the geographic South Pole – was announced by the IceCube collaboration. However, the origin of these neutrinos is still unknown as no sources have been identified to this day. Promising neutrino source candidates are blazars, which are a subclass of active galactic nuclei with radio jets pointing towards the Earth. In this thesis, the neutrino flux from blazars is tested with a maximum likelihood stacking approach, analyzing the combined emission from uniform groups of objects. The stacking enhances the sensitivity w.r.t. the still unsuccessful single source searches. The analysis utilizes four years of IceCube data including one year from the completed detector. As all results presented in this work are compatible with background, upper limits on the neutrino flux are given. It is shown that, under certain conditions, some hadronic blazar models can be challenged or even rejected. Moreover, the sensitivity of this analysis – and any other future IceCube point source search – was enhanced by the development of a new angular reconstruction method. It is based on a detailed simulation of the photon propagation in the Antarctic ice. The median resolution for muon tracks, induced by high-energy neutrinos, is improved for all neutrino energies above IceCube’s lower threshold at 0.1TeV. By reprocessing the detector data and simulation from the year 2010, it is shown that the new method improves IceCube’s discovery potential by 20% to 30% depending on the declination.

Realisierung der IceCube MonteCarlo-Produktion im WLCG und Untersuchung von Auswirkungen meteorologischer Parameter auf die Erzeugung atmosphärischer Myonen

Das am Südpol gelegene Neutrinoteleskop IceCube detektiert hochenergetische Neutrinos über die schwache Wechselwirkung geladener und neutraler Ströme. Die Analyse basiert auf einem Vergleich mit Monte-Carlo-Simulationen, deren Produktion global koordiniert wird. In Mainz ist es erstmalig gelungen, Simulationen innerhalb der Architektur des Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) zu realisieren, was die Möglichkeit eröffnet, Monte-Carlo-Berechnungen auch auf andere deutsche Rechnerfarmen (CEs) mit IceCube-Berechtigung zu verteilen. Atmosphärische Myonen werden mit einer Rate von über 1000 Ereignissen pro Sekunde aufgezeichnet. Eine korrekte Interpretation dieses dominanten Signals, welches um einen Faktor von 10^6 reduziert werden muss um das eigentliche Neutrinosignal zu extrahieren, ist deswegen von großer Bedeutung. Eigene Simulationen mit der Software-Umgebung CORSIKA wurden durchgeführt um die von Energie und Einfallswinkel abhängige Entstehungshöhe atmosphärischer Myonen zu bestimmen. IceCube Myonraten wurden mit Wetterdaten des European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forcasts (ECMWF) verglichen und Korrelationen zwischen jahreszeitlichen sowie kurzzeitigen Schwankungen der Atmosphärentemperatur und Myonraten konnten nachgewiesen werden. Zudem wurde eine Suche nach periodischen Effekten in der Atmosphäre, verursacht durch z.B. meteorologische Schwerewellen, mit Hilfe einer Fourieranalyse anhand der IceCube-Daten durchgeführt. Bislang konnte kein signifikanter Nachweis zur Existenz von Schwerewellen am Südpol erbracht werden.

High quality colloidal crystals with different architectures and their optical properties

In this present work high quality PMMA opals with different sphere sizes, silica opals from large size spheres, multilayer opals, and inverse opals were fabricated. Highly monodisperse PMMA spheres were synthesized by surfactant-free emulsion polymerization (polydispersity ~2%). Large-area and well-ordered PMMA crystalline films with a homogenous thickness were produced by the vertical deposition method using a drawing device. Optical experiments have confirmed the high quality of these PMMA photonic crystals, e.g., well resolved high-energy bands of the transmission and reflectance spectra of the opaline films were observed. For fabrication of high quality opaline photonic crystals from large silica spheres (diameter of 890 nm), self-assembled in patterned Si-substrates a novel technique has been developed, in which the crystallization was performed by using a drawing apparatus in combination with stirring. The achievements comprise a spatial selectivity of opal crystallization without special treatment of the wafer surface, the opal lattice was found to match the pattern precisely in width as well as depth, particularly an absence of cracks within the size of the trenches, and finally a good three-dimensional order of the opal lattice even in trenches with a complex confined geometry. Multilayer opals from opaline films with different sphere sizes or different materials were produced by sequential crystallization procedure. Studies of the transmission in triple-layer hetero-opal revealed that its optical properties cannot only be considered as the linear superposition of two independent photonic bandgaps. The remarkable interface effect is the narrowing of the transmission minima. Large-area, high-quality, and robust photonic opal replicas from silicate-based inorganic-organic hybrid polymers (ORMOCER® s) were prepared by using the template-directed method, in which a high quality PMMA opal template was infiltrated with a neat inorganic-organic ORMOCER® oligomer, which can be photopolymerized within the opaline voids leading to a fully-developed replica structure with a filling factor of nearly 100%. This opal replica is structurally homogeneous, thermally and mechanically stable and the large scale (cm2 size) replica films can be handled easily as free films with a pair of tweezers.

Ein neuartiges Interferometer zur Messung magneto-optischer Effekte an L-Absorptionskanten von ferromagnetischen Metallen mit linearpolarisierter Undulatorstrahlung

Am Mainzer Mikrotron MAMI wurde ein neuartiges Interferometer entwickelt und getestet, mit dem magneto-optische Effekte an dünnen, freitragenden Folien von 3d-Übergangsmetallen wie Eisen, Kobalt oder Nickel an den L_{2,3}-Absorptionskanten (im Spektralbereich der weichen Röntgenstrahlung) gemessen werden können. Es handelt sich um eine Weiterentwicklung eines an MAMI erprobten Interferometers, das im wesentlichen aus einer kollinearen Anordnung zweier identischer Undulatoren, zwischen die die dünne Probefolie eingebracht wird, und einem Gitterspektrometer besteht. Aus den als Funktion des Abstands der Undulatoren beobachtbaren Intensitätsoszillation lassen sich das Dekrement des Realteils δ und der Absorptionskoeffizient β des komplexen Brechungsindex bestimmen.rnIm Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde die Apparatur derart weiterentwickelt, dass auch die magnetisch zirkulare Doppelbrechung Δδ und der magnetisch zirkulare Dichroismus Δβ an den L_{2,3}-Absorptionskanten von Übergangsmetallen gemessen werden können. Der zweite Undulator wurde um die Elektronenstrahlachse um den Winkel Ψ = ±107° drehbar gemacht. Damit dient er auch als Analysator der aus der Folie austretenden elliptisch polarisierten weichen Röntgenstrahlung, für die - wie bei der Faraday-Rotation - die Polarisationsebene gedreht ist. Weiterhin kann die Spaltbreite der 10-poligen Hybrid-Undulatoren mit einer Periodenlänge von 12 mm und damit der Undulatorparameter über eine Antriebsmechanik kontinuierlich variiert werden, wodurch eine optimale Anpassung der Amplituden der Undulatorstrahlung aus den beiden Undulatoren möglich wird. Der maximale Undulatorparameter beträgt K = 1.1. Auch das Spektrometer, das auf einem selbstfokussierenden Gitter mit variierter Liniendichte (im Mittel 1400 Linien / mm) basiert, wurde weiterentwickelt. Als Detektor kommt jetzt eine fensterlose CCD mit 1024 x 1024 Pixeln und einer Pixelgröße von 13 μm x 13 μm zum Einsatz, die im Bildmodus betrieben wird, was die gleichzeitige Messung eines Energieintervalls von ca. 50 eV ermöglicht. Die totale Linienbreite wurde bei einer vertikalen Strahlfleckausdehnung von σ_y = 70 μm (rms) am Neon 1s-3p Übergang bei (867.18 ±0.02) eV zu Δħω = (0.218 ±0.002) eV (FWHM) gemessen. Das hohe Auflösungsvermögen von 4000 und die Möglichkeit der Eichung gegen den 1s-3p Übergang von Neon wurden ausgenutzt, um die Energie der Maxima an den Absorptionskanten von Nickel (weiße Linien) neu zu bestimmen. Die Ergebnisse E_{L_2}=(869.65_{-0.16}^{+0.27}) eV und E_{L_3}=(852.37_{-0.11}^{+0.16}) eV stellen eine Verbesserung früherer Messungen dar, die große Streuungen aufwiesen.rnAus systematischen Messungen als Funktion des Abstandes der Undulatoren und des Drehwinkels Ψ wurden die magnetisch zirkulare Doppelbrechung Δδ im Energiebereich 834 eV ≤ ħω ≤ 885 eV an einer freitragenden, bis zur Sättigung magnetisierten Nickelfolie der Dicke von (96.4 ±2.7) nm gemessen. Sowohl das Auflösungsvermögen als auch die Genauigkeit der Messungen für Δδ übersteigen bekannte Literaturangaben signifikant, so dass eine bisher nicht bekannte Feinstruktur gefunden werden konnte. Außerdem wurde der Betrag des magnetisch zirkularen Dichroismus |Δβ| im Bereich des Maximums an der L_3-Absorptionskante mit hoher Genauigkeit gemessen.rn

High-mass Drell-Yan cross-section and search for new phenomena in multi-electron/positron final states with the ATLAS detector

The Standard Model of particle physics is a very successful theory which describes nearly all known processes of particle physics very precisely. Nevertheless, there are several observations which cannot be explained within the existing theory. In this thesis, two analyses with high energy electrons and positrons using data of the ATLAS detector are presented. One, probing the Standard Model of particle physics and another searching for phenomena beyond the Standard Model.rnThe production of an electron-positron pair via the Drell-Yan process leads to a very clean signature in the detector with low background contributions. This allows for a very precise measurement of the cross-section and can be used as a precision test of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) where this process has been calculated at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). The invariant mass spectrum mee is sensitive to parton distribution functions (PFDs), in particular to the poorly known distribution of antiquarks at large momentum fraction (Bjoerken x). The measurementrnof the high-mass Drell-Yan cross-section in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is performed on a dataset collected with the ATLAS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb-1. The differential cross-section of pp -> Z/gamma + X -> e+e- + X is measured as a function of the invariant mass in the range 116 GeV < mee < 1500 GeV. The background is estimated using a data driven method and Monte Carlo simulations. The final cross-section is corrected for detector effects and different levels of final state radiation corrections. A comparison isrnmade to various event generators and to predictions of pQCD calculations at NNLO. A good agreement within the uncertainties between measured cross-sections and Standard Model predictions is observed.rnExamples of observed phenomena which can not be explained by the Standard Model are the amount of dark matter in the universe and neutrino oscillations. To explain these phenomena several extensions of the Standard Model are proposed, some of them leading to new processes with a high multiplicity of electrons and/or positrons in the final state. A model independent search in multi-object final states, with objects defined as electrons and positrons, is performed to search for these phenomenas. Therndataset collected at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb-1 is used. The events are separated in different categories using the object multiplicity. The data-driven background method, already used for the cross-section measurement was developed further for up to five objects to get an estimation of the number of events including fake contributions. Within the uncertainties the comparison between data and Standard Model predictions shows no significant deviations.

Field-free control of magnetism in nanostructured materials probed with high resolution X-ray microscopy

Magnetic memories are a backbone of today's digital data storage technology, where the digital information is stored as the magnetic configuration of nanostructured ferromagnetic bits. Currently, the writing of the digital information on the magnetic memory is carried out with the help of magnetic fields. This approach, while viable, is not optimal due to its intrinsically high energy consumption and relatively poor scalability. For this reason, the research for different mechanisms that can be used to manipulate the magnetic configuration of a material is of interest. In this thesis, the control of the magnetization of different nanostructured materials with field-free mechanisms is investigated. The magnetic configuration of these nanostructured materials was imaged directly with high resolution x-ray magnetic microscopy. rnFirst of all, the control of the magnetic configuration of nanostructured ferromagnetic Heusler compounds by fabricating nanostructures with different geometries was analyzed. Here, it was observed that the magnetic configuration of the nanostructured elements is given by the competition of magneto-crystalline and shape anisotropy. By fabricating elements with different geometries, we could alter the point where these two effects equilibrate, allowing for the possibility to tailor the magnetic configuration of these nanostructured elements to the required necessities.rnThen, the control of the magnetic configuration of Ni nanostructures fabricated on top of a piezoelectric material with the magneto-elastic effect (i.e. by applying a piezoelectric strain to the Ni nanostructures) was investigated. Here, the magneto-elastic coupling effect gives rise to an additional anisotropy contribution, proportional to the strain applied to the magnetic material. For this system, a reproducible and reversible control of the magnetic configuration of the nanostructured Ni elements with the application of an electric field across the piezoelectric material was achieved.rnFinally, the control of the magnetic configuration of La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) nanostructures with spin-polarized currents was studied. Here, the spin-transfer torque effect was employed to achieve the displacement of magnetic domain walls in the LSMO nanostructures. A high spin-transfer torque efficiency was observed for LSMO at low temperatures, and a Joule-heating induced hopping of the magnetic domain walls was observed at room temperatures, allowing for the analysis of the energetics of the domain walls in LSMO.rnThe results presented in this thesis give thus an overview on the different field-free approaches that can be used to manipulate and tailor the magnetization configuration of a nanostructured material to the various technological requirements, opening up novel interesting possibilities for these materials.