Organized by: Prof. Lu Lu

Events During the Week of December 11th through December 18th, 2016

Monday, December 12th, 2016

No events scheduled

Tuesday, December 13th, 2016

No events scheduled

Wednesday, December 14th, 2016

New opportunities with solar neutrinos

Time: 2:30 pm

Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall

Speaker: Shirley Li, Ohio State University

Abstract: Crucial questions about solar neutrinos remain unanswered. Our knowledge of stellar fusion processes and neutrinos themselves is incomplete. Neutrino detectors such as Super-Kamiokande have the exposure needed, but backgrounds are limiting. A leading background is the beta decays of isotopes produced by cosmic-ray muons and their secondary particles, which initiate nuclear spallation reactions. I will discuss my comprehensive studies of the spallation backgrounds, from calculating their production rates, to understanding their production mechanisms, to how to implement better background rejection methods. I will also discuss the applications of our MeV work in detecting PeV astrophysical neutrinos in IceCube.

Host: Stefan Westerhoff

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Thursday, December 15th, 2016

A feasibility study of detecting 1e18 eV neutrinos with a dedicated Cherenkov Telescope Array

Time: 4:00 pm

Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall

Speaker: Nepomuk Otte , Georgia Tech

Abstract: The detection of astrophysical neutrinos with IceCube and solid predictions of the flux of cosmogenic neutrinos have renewed the interest in detecting neutrinos at 10^9 GeV. To date no experiment exists with sufficient sensitivity at these energies and thus the motivation for this study. I take a fresh look at the Earth-skimming technique in which a tau neutrino converts in the Earth's mantle and the decay products of the tau are detected with Cherenkov telescopes that monitor a large volume of atmosphere. In this talk I present a conceptual design study of an array of Cherenkov telescopes that is optimized for 10^9 GeV and has a sensitivity that is competitive with other proposed experiments.

Host: Justin Vandenbroucke

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Friday, December 16th, 2016

No events scheduled