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* Astroparticle physics

Neutrino Programme

Programme Leader

Paul de Jong

Main points: scientific

ANTARES

  • Search for neutrinos from the blazar TXS 0506+056
  •  Multi-messenger searches for sources of gravitational waves and high energy neutrinos, with LIGO, ANTARES and IceCube
  •  Constraints on galactic diffuse neutrino emission from ANTARES and IceCube
  •  All-flavour search for a diffuse flux of cosmic neutrinos with nine years of ANTARES data
  •  Measurement of oscillations of atmospheric neutrinos and limits on sterile neutrinos

KM3NeT

  • In-situ calibration of the first ORCA line, determination of depth dependence of atmospheric muon background in sea water.

Main points: technical

KM3NeT

  • Further improvements in KM3NeT design, a.o. sea floor network, optical system and penetrators.
  • Completion of DOM construction for KM3NeT phase 1 at Nikhef (218 DOMs)
  • Completion of 6 ORCA DUs, ready to be deployed
  • Reconstruction and event classification software, general software and oscillation analysis software frameworks

DUNE

  •  Construction of the protoDUNE single-phase prototype TPC at CERN, and operation stand-alone and in a testbeam; design of the DAQ for protoDUNE and DUNE.

Awards/Fellowships

  • Grant from the Dutch National Roadmap for Large Scale Research Infrastructure for KM3NeT, 12.7 M€
  • NWO Physics Programme “The Hidden Universe of Weakly Interacting Particles”, 1.9 M€
  • NWO Physics/f grant for Suzan Basegmez du Pree

Key positions in collaborations

KM3NeT

  • Deputy spokesperson: Aart Heijboer
  • Technical coordinator: Els Koffeman
  • Optical systems coordinator: Gerard Kieft (until May 2018), Antonio D’Amico (after May 2018)
  • Mechanics coordinator: Edward Berbee

ANTARES

  • Point sources group convener: Dorothea Samtleben

Main papers in 2018

ANTARES

  • The Search for Neutrinos from TXS 0506+056 with the ANTARES Telescope, Astrophys. J. 863 (2018) L30

KM3NeT

  •  Sensitivity of the KM3NeT/ARCA neutrino telescope to point-like neutrino sources, arXiv:1810.08499

DUNE

  •   FELIX based readout of the Single-Phase ProtoDUNE detector, arXiv:1806.09194

 

Cosmic Rays (Pierre Auger Observatory & GRAND)

Programme Leader

Sijbrand de Jong

Main points: scientific

  • Further refinement of ultra-high-energy cosmic ray anisotropy studies
  • Measurement of horizontal air showers with the radio detection technique
  • New physics inspired model for (energy) lateral density profile of radiofrequency radiation emitted by extensive air showers
  • Publication of the GRAND Science and Design white paper

Main points: technical

  • Bulk production of AugerPrime upgrade SSD modules (90 completed at Nikhef)
  • Site selection for GRAND Proto300 and start of GRAND Proto300 design
  • Start of Auger Radio design

Awards, fellowships etc.

  • ERC Advance Grant (3.5 MEuro), Auger Radio Detector, Jörg Hörandel
  • NWO Groot Grant (2.5 MEuro), Auger Radio Detector, Sijbrand de Jong

Key positions in collaborations

  • Auger Engineering Radio Array group leader: Jörg Hörandel
  • Auger outreach co-convenor: Charles Timmermans
  • GRAND technical coordinator: Charles Timmermans

Main paper in 2018

  • Observation of inclined EeV air showers with the radio detector of the Pierre Auger
    Observatory, The Pierre Auger Collaboration, JCAP10 (2018) 026

Dark Matter

Programme Leader

Patrick Decowski

Main points: scientific

  • The XENON1T published the world’s leading results on the coupling of spin-independent WIMP dark matter to ordinary matter in May 2018, based on one tonne-year of exposure.
  • The same exposure has also been used to analyze the data for WIMP-pion, spin-dependent couplings and rare decays.
  • The data-period after May has mainly been used for additional calibration runs and R&D for XENONnT. In particular, cryogenic radon distillation and a novel magnetic pump were tested to investigate radon reduction measures for XENONnT.
  • The XENON1T experiment was shutdown on Dec 9, 2018 to allow the upgrade of the detector to XENONnT. During the two-and-a-half years that the detector has been “cold”, i.e. with liquid xenon inside, it has operated flawlessly, with little downtime.
  • The design of XENONnT has been largely finalized. This phase will increase the liquid xenon mass from 3.2 tons to 8 tons, with an order of magnitude lower radioactive backgrounds. XENONnT is expected to start operation in the fall of 2019.
  • The Nikhef-based liquid xenon XAMS R&D setup has been used to investigate pulse-shape discrimination and electric-field effects in liquid xenon.
  • Detailed physics studies for DARWIN, a future fifty-ton liquid xenon detector, are ongoing.

Main points: technical

  • Stellar performance of the Nikhef-designed trigger and event-builder, with more than 99% uptime.
  • SURFsara/Nikhef Grid resources fully integrated in XENON data processing chain.

Grants

  • NWO Physics Programme “The Hidden Universe of Weakly Interacting Particles”, 1.9 M€ (with KM3NeT)

Key positions in collaborations

  • XENON Editorial Board: Patrick Decowski
  • XENONnT Technical Coordinator: Auke-Pieter Colijn
  • DARWIN Executive Board: Patrick Decowski

Main paper in 2018

  •  XENON Collaboration (E. Aprile et al.), Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 111302 (2018).

Gravitational Waves

Programme Leader

Frank Linde

Main points: scientific

  • Ligo/Virgo collaboration meeting in Maastricht, Sep 4-7
  • R&D laboratory ETpathfinder on track to become a reality
  • Unanimous adopted motion in parliament concerning the ETpathfinder & Einstein telescope (Nov 6)
  • MoU of the Einstein Telescope Coalition signed by many Dutch, Belgium and German institutes on a special meeting in Maastricht on Sep 13
  • LIGO-Virgo papers with major Nikhef input:
  • Paper on catalog of O1+O2 events (Caudill strongly involved in the detections): Abbott et al., arXiv:1811.12907
  • Testing GR with the binary neutron star inspiral GW170817 (Van Den Broeck chair of the paper writing team): Abbott et al., arXiv:1811.00364
  • Measurements of neutron star radii and equation of state with GW170817 (using analysis methodologies that were pioneered at Nikhef): Abbott et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 161101 (2018)
  • First measurement of Hubble constant without using electromagnetic counterpart (with strong input from postdoc Ghosh and MSc student Sur): Fishbach et al., ApJ Letters 871, L13 (2019)
  • Nieuwe collega’s bij GRAPPA/UvA: Samaya Nissanke, Philipp Mosta, …
  • Awarding of NWO-Groot & NWO-Physics proposals
  • Einstein Telescope collaboration established during the 9th Einstein Telescope Symposium at EGO, Cascina, Italy on April 19-20

Main points: technical

  • En route to reach sensitivity goal for O3 (60-85 Mpc)
  • Exploring drilling in Terziet started in November

Key positions in collaborations:

  • Spokesperson Virgo: Jo van den Brand
  • Coordinator Suspended Optical Benches subsystem: Alessandro Bertolini
  • Member LIGO-Virgo Collaboration Detection Committee: Alessandro Bertolini
  • Co-convenor science case for 3rd generation (GWIC): Chris Van Den Broeck
  • Co-chair LIGO-Virgo Tests of GR: Chris Van Den Broeck
  • Founding co-chair of LIGO-Virgo Cosmology: Archisman Ghosh
  • Co-chair All-Sky Searches for Compact Binary Coalescences: Sarah Caudill

Main paper in 2018

  •   Paper on catalog of O1+O2 events: Abbott et al., arXiv:1811.12907