Organized by: Prof. Lu Lu

Events During the Week of February 25th through March 4th, 2018

Monday, February 26th, 2018

Understanding CP-Violation in Leptons

Time: 3:30 pm

Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall

Speaker: Daniel Cherdack, Colorado State University

Abstract: Of the four known fundamental forces the weak force has many unique properties. It is the only standard model force that couples to all known fermions, that has massive exchange bosons, and that induces particle flavor changes. Even more surprising is that the weak force maximally violates parity symmetry, and has even been demonstrated to break charge-parity (CP) symmetry, meaning the weak force interacts differently with matter and anti-matter. This last property may hold the key to understanding several fundamental mysteries of the universe from the three-generation structure of matter, to the missing link between the big bang and the observed universe.

Neutrinos only interact via the weak force which means they are hard to detect, but provide a unique test bed for studying the weak interaction. Over the past few decades it was discovered that neutrinos have mass and change flavors. Studying the way neutrinos change flavors, termed neutrino oscillations, allows us to search for a new source of CP-violation. Measuring and understanding the ways neutrinos interact with nuclear matter is key to studiying neutrino oscillations and has proved to be more difficult than previously thought. The next-generation Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will usher in an era of high precision neutrino physics with the worlds most intense neutrino beam and massive high resolution detectors, increasing the impact of neutrino interaction measurements. I will discuss the theoretical framework we use to describe neutrino oscillations, as well as the difficulties in making neutrino interaction measurements and how they can be mitigated moving forward.

Host: Sridhara Dasu

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Tuesday, February 27th, 2018

No events scheduled

Wednesday, February 28th, 2018

No events scheduled

Thursday, March 1st, 2018

What's New with the Pierre Auger Observatory

Time: 2:30 pm

Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall

Speaker: Corbin Covault , Case Western Reserve University

Abstract: We present an update of selected results and recent activities and plans for the Pierre Auger Observatory. Located near Malargue, Argentina, Auger is the world's largest cosmic ray air shower array. Auger has recently reported a significant detection of large scale anisotropy in the arrival direction of the highest energy cosmic rays. We also describe recent efforts to integrate spectral and composition measurements and what these results tell us about the nature and origin of cosmic ray sources. We address some points of tension between results reported by Auger and those of the Telescope Array (TA), and describe a project involving our group at CWRU to obtain an in-situ cross-calibration between Auger and TA surface detector stations. Finally we describe progress toward the development of the array detector upgrade, called AugerPrime, which aims for improved composition measurements.

Host: Justin Vandenbroucke

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Friday, March 2nd, 2018

No events scheduled