NPAC (Nuclear/Particle/Astro/Cosmo) Forums |
Organized by: Prof. Lu Lu
Events During the Week of February 15th through February 22nd, 2015
Monday, February 16th, 2015
- No events scheduled
Tuesday, February 17th, 2015
- Faculty Candidate Seminar
- Using kaons to unlock the secrets of the neutrino
- Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Joshua Spitz, MIT
- Abstract: More than 80 years after its proposed existence, the neutrino remains
largely mysterious and elusive. Despite this fact, we are closing in
on answers to some of the big questions surrounding the "little
neutral one". After an introduction to the neutrino and neutrino mass,
I will discuss two of the most important open questions in particle
physics and cosmology today: (1) How many neutrinos are there? and (2)
Is there a difference between matter neutrinos and antimatter
neutrinos?
When a charged-kaon decays at rest, it usually produces a
monoenergetic (236 MeV) muon neutrino. Recently, this unique neutrino has been
identified as an important tool in helping to eventually answer these
big questions. I will discuss the "kaon decay-at-rest" concept for
neutrino physics and present a set of experiments that will be able to
perform the relevant measurements in the next few years. - Host: Dasu
Wednesday, February 18th, 2015
- Faculty Candidate Seminar
- Measuring the Neutrino Mass with Tritium Beta Decays
- Time: 8:30 am - 9:30 am
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Noah Oblath, MIT
- Abstract: Neutrinos are the most common matter particles in the universe, and yet many fundamental questions about them remain unanswered. They are a crit- ical part of our understanding of everything from cosmology and astrophysics to nuclear reactors and particle accelerators. The absolute neutrino mass scale is one of those unanswered questions, and the most sensitive direct measure- ments of it are made by tritium beta-decay experiments. I will discuss two such experiments: the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN), and Project 8. The KATRIN experiment will use a large electromagnetic spectrometer to improve the sensitivity to the neutrino mass scale by an order of magnitude over the previous generation of tritium beta-decay experiments. The Project 8 experiment will allow us to further improve the sensitivity to the neutrino mass using a novel technique: measuring the frequency of the cyclotron radiation emitted by beta-decay electrons as they travel in a mag- netic field. I will describe these experimental efforts, including recent results from Project 8, and discuss how, over the next several years, they will both contribute to our knowledge of the properties of neutrinos and their role in the universe.
- Host: Dasu
Thursday, February 19th, 2015
- No events scheduled
Friday, February 20th, 2015
- No events scheduled