Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPA) at LBNL

The INPA Seminar weekly talks are on Fridays, starting at 12:00 pm, unless informed otherwise. The seminar talk starts with a brief presentation of the weekly scientific news. Typically, the talks conclude by 1:00 pm. The seminars are held in the Sessler Conference Room,  located in Bldg. 50A- 5132.

The committee members are:

The seminar schedule for the Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPA) is tentative and becomes final a few days before the Friday talk.

Please send all suggestions for future INPA talks and speakers to the INPA Committee.

To be added to the INPA News Mailing List, please contact Erica Hall.

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Micah Buuck (SLAC)

Speaker: Micah Buuck (SLAC) Title: Neurtrinoless Double-Beta Decay and Radioactive Backgrounds in the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Abstract: Neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) is a lepton-number-violating process whose existence would indicate that neutrinos are Majorana fermions. The MAJORANA collaboration is searching for 0νββ in germanium-76 using a modular array of high-purity germanium detectors, housed at the Sanford Underground […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Jorge Morales (SLAC)

Speaker: Jorge Morales (SLAC) Title: Simulation of Dark Matter and Standard Model Interactions in the SuperCDMS Soudan Experiment Abstract: Astronomical observations lead us to believe that dark matter constitutes the majority of the mass of the Universe, yet it has never been directly observed experimentally. The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search Experiment (SuperCDMS) aims to […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Bradley Kavanagh (IFCA – Spain)

Speaker: Bradley Kavanagh (IFCA - Spain) Title: Detection Dark Matter around Black Holes with Gravitational Waves Abstract: The observation of Gravitational Waves (GWs) has opened up a whole new avenue for constraining and detecting particle Dark Matter (DM). One of the most promising systems to study is the Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspiral (IMRI): a stellar-mass […]

VIRTUAL INPA Seminar – Matthew Szydagis (UALbany)

Speaker: Matthew Szydagis (UALbany) Title: The Road to Discovering Sub-GeV Dark Matter Using Supercooled Liquids Abstract:The latest developments in the search for low-mass dark matter with the snowball chamber technology, essentially a reverse bubble chamber using supercooled water instead of superheating, will be presented. The latest calibration data sets with neutron and gamma-ray radioactive calibration […]

SPECIAL VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Benjamin Schmidt (LBNL)

Speaker: Benjamin Schmidt (LBNL) Title: A new limit from the search for 0νββ of 100Mo from the CUPID-Mo experiment Abstract: The CUPID-Mo experiment, currently taking data at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (France), is a demonstrator for CUPID, the next-generation upgrade of the first ton-scale cryogenic 0νββ-search, CUORE. The experiment is searching for 0νββ decay of […]

VIRTUAL SEMINAR Special INPA / Research Progress Meeting, Friday, July 17, 2020 – Michelle Galloway (University of Zurich)

Speaker: Michelle Galloway (University of Zurich) Title: Observation of excess electronic recoil events in XENON1T Abstract: A search for new physics with XENON1T revealed an excess of electronic recoil events in the (1 - 7) keV region, favoring signal over background with significances of 3.5 sigma for solar axions/ALPs, 3.2 sigma for an enhanced neutrino […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Hao Chen (Texas A&M University)

Speaker: Hao Chen (Texas A&M University) Title: Two New Cryogenic Detector R&D Abstract: It is well-accepted that the majority of the matter in the universe is dark and non-baryonic. The nature of dark matter, however, remains mysterious. Various proposed candidates span a wide range in the mass and cross section parameter space. Many experimental efforts […]

SPECIAL VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Geertje Heuermann (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)

Speaker: Geertje Heuermann (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) Title: Active Shielding for Future Large-Scale Dark Matter Experiments Abstract: In this talk I will present the conceptual design of a water Cherenkov detector and a loaded liquid scintillator which effectively allow to reduce cosmogenic and radiogenic background sources in tonne scale dark matter detectors. Join Zoom Meeting https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/94627104366?pwd=K09lTTBHdk5UVEw1cm1EOEVxVU05QT09 Meeting […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Gioacchino Ranucci (INFN) Italy

Speaker: Gioacchino Ranucci (INFN) Italy Title: First detection of solar neutrinos from the CNO cycle with Borexino Abstract: The liquid scintillator detector Borexino reported recently the direct observation of neutrinos produced in the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) fusion cycle in the Sun. This is the first experimental evidence of the existence of such reaction sequence in a […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Jared Vann (Univ. of Liverpool)

Speaker: Jared Vann (University of Liverpool) Title: ARIADNE: Fast Optical Readout of Dual-Phase LArTPCs with Timepix3 Cameras Abstract: The ARIADNE experiment is a 1-ton dual-phase LArTPC with a novel optical readout method developed for applications in future Neutrino detectors. Optical readout is a potential alternative to existing charge based readouts in dual phase LArTPCs. The […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Stefan Schoppmann (UC Berkeley)

Speaker: Stefan Schoppmann (UC Berkeley) Title: the STEREO Experiment: Search for Sterile Neutrinos Abstract: In recent years, two unsolved anomalies have appeared from the study of reactor neutrinos: the reactor antineutrino anomaly being related to the absolute neutrino flux, and the energy spectral shape anomaly. By conducting measurements of reactor neutrinos at very short baselines […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Stephane Zsoldos (UCB)

Speaker: Stephane Zsoldos (UC Berkeley) Title: An overview of the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment Abstract: Hyper-Kamiokande, which started construction in April 2020, is a next generation underground water Cherenkov detector, based on the highly successful Super-Kamiokande experiment. It will serve as a far detector, 295 km away, of a long baseline neutrino experiment for the upgraded J-PARC […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR – Adrien Hourlier (MIT)

Speaker: Adrien Hourlier (MIT) Title: MiniBooNE Oscillation Results with Complete Dataset Abstract: The MiniBooNE experiment, located on the Booster Neutrino Beamline at Fermilab, reports a total excess of 638.0+/-132.8 electron-like events (4.8σ) from a data sample corresponding to 18.75×10^20 protons-on-target in neutrino mode, which is a 46% increase in the data sample with respect to […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Scott Kravitz (LBNL)

Speaker: Scott Kravitz (LBNL)    Title: CrystaLiZe - Solid Xenon Detector R&D   Abstract:  Radon and its daughter decays limit the sensitivity of direct WIMP dark matter searches, despite extensive screening programs, careful material selection and specialized Rn-reduction systems. For xenon time projection chambers, a means to surpass this constraint may lie in crystallizing the xenon. In […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Kev Abazajian (UC Irvine) 

Speaker: Kev Abazajian (UC Irvine)    Title: Arising and demising candidate dark matter signals on the sky, and the potential of future searches   Abstract:  New  technologies searching are observing the high-energy Universe with unprecedented detail. One of the primary goals of gamma-ray and X-ray astronomy has been the search for potential signals of dark matter […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Sukanya Chakrabarti (RIT)

Speaker: Sukanya Chakrabarti (Rochester Institute Technology) Title: Measuring Accelerations— Near & Far Abstract: Recent technological advances and observational programs now make it possible for us to directly measure the Galactic acceleration experienced by stars within the Milky Way. I will discuss the traditional method of estimating Galactic accelerations and thereby the Oort limit (from which […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Livia Ludhova (RWTH)

Speaker: Livia Ludhova (RWTH Aachen/Forschungszentrum Jülich)   Title: JUNO: the first multi-kton liquid scintillator based neutrino detector   Abstract:   The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a neutrino experiment under construction in a 700 m deep underground laboratory near Jiangmen in South China. The detector main component will be 20 kton of liquid scintillator held in a […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Julieta Gruszko (UNCCH)

Speaker: Julieta Gruszko (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Title: Shedding ‘Nu’ Light on the Nature of Matter: NuDot and the Search for Majorana Neutrinos Abstract: Why is the universe dominated by matter, and not antimatter? Neutrinos, with their changing flavors and tiny masses, could provide an answer. If the neutrino is its own […]

VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Tomi Akindele (LLNL)

Speaker: Tomi Akindele (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)  Title: Antineutrinos as a Nuclear Safeguards Tool Abstract: To date, antineutrino experiments built for the purpose of demonstrating a nonproliferation capability have typically employed organic scintillator, and been situated as close to the core as possible - typically a few meters to tens of meters distant, and have […]

INPA guests from campus can now come to the lab early on Fridays. The INPA Common Room (50-5026) is reserved for our guests from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Note that the seminars are now held in 50A-5132 to accommodate a more significant number of attendees.

CPTea Series (also known as INPA Tea Series)

The Physics Division CPTea Series invites you to an In-Person Tea Series 1st Friday of every month at 3:30 pm INPA Conference Room 50-5026.

Everyone is welcome to attend the open forum. Tea and light refreshments will be served.

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INPA Common Room (50-5026)
Fridays
3:30 pm

Access to the Lab

For a shuttle pass, please email Erica Hall. The pass is only valid for the day of the seminar.

Erica Hall