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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Speaker: Anton Baleato Lizancos (Cambridge) Title: “Understanding biases to CMB lensing and delensing on the road to precision science” Abstract: For cosmologists, CMB lensing can be both a blessing and a nuisance. It's a nuisance because it generates spurious B-mode polarisation which obscures the highly-sought-after signal from inflationary gravitational waves, but it's a blessing because […]

Speaker: Liang Dai (UC Berkeley) Title: A New Window Into the Universe: Gravitational Waves From Compact Binary Coalescence  Abstract: Detection of chirping gravitational waves (GWs) at ground-based laser interferometry observatories LIGO and Virgo have uncovered a population of compact binary mergers. Forthcoming observing runs with upgraded sensitivity and more observatories joining the network will tremendously increase the number […]

Speaker: Tongyan Lin (UC San Diego) Title: Direct Detection of Sub-GeV Dark Matter with the Migdal Effect in Semiconductors Abstract: As direct detection experiments expand the search for sub-GeV dark matter and lower their energy thresholds, the many-body physics of crystals can be increasingly important and also be used to enhance discovery potential. In this […]

Speaker: ​Elena Gramellini (​Fermilab) Title: Seeing the ​L​ight in ​P​ixelated TPCs: Q-Pix and LILAr  Abstract: Noble elements Time Projection Chambers (TPC) are the detector technology of choice for the next generation of discovery at the intensity frontier. These detectors provide a number of experimental handles, such as full 3D-imaging, excellent particle identification and precise calorimetric energy reconstruction which […]

Speaker: Patrick Komiske (MIT) Title: Optimizing Particle Physics With Machine Learning Abstract: Exciting new advances in particle physics, particularly in the area of jet physics at colliders such as the LHC, are being driven by machine learning (ML) methods. For example, in just a few short years, the state of the art for important tasks such as jet […]

Speaker: Kelly Stifter (Stanford University) Title: The LZ Dark Matter Experiment: From Detector Development to First Physics Abstract: LZ is a next generation dark matter search designed to significantly extend our sensitivity to WIMP dark matter candidates. At the core of the LZ experiment is a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC) with a 7 ton […]

Speaker: Nguyen Phan (Los Alamos National Laboratory)  Title: “Understanding Electrical Breakdown in Liquid Helium through Analysis of the Empirical Breakdown Field Distributions” Abstract: Many present and future large-scale detectors in nuclear, particle, and astroparticle physics experiments will employ very high voltages and/or high electric fields inside a noble liquid detection medium.  However, electrical breakdown in these […]

Speaker: Yifan Chen (University of Bern, Switzerland) Title: Just A Little Kick: Low-Energy Transfer Muon-Neutrino νμ Charged-Current Interactions on Argon Abstract: Accelerator neutrino oscillation experiments provide a sensitive way to approach a few major open questions in neutrino physics. To achieve precision neutrino oscillation measurements, we need a better understanding of key aspects of the […]

Speaker: Tucker Elleflot (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Title: Multiplexed Readout of Transition Edge Sensors for CMB Polarization Experiments Abstract: The polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provides a valuable means to study the very early universe and high energy physics beyond the standard model. Remarkable experimental progress has been made on this front in the past […]

Speaker: VIRTUAL INPA SEMINAR | Joseph DeRose (UC Santa Cruz) Title: “Models of the Non-Linear Universe for Precision Cosmology” Abstract: Imaging and redshift surveys of galaxies and high resolution observations of the CMB promise to shed light on the physical nature of dark matter and dark energy in the coming decade. One of the main […]

Speaker: Zack Li (Princeton University) Title: “Enabling New Views of the Early Universe from the Atacama in the Next Five Years” Abstract: We're producing some exciting Cosmic Microwave Background data with high-resolution, ground-based observations at 27 - 280 GHz, from experiments like ACT, SPT, and (soon) SO and CMB-S4. I'll discuss present and future challenges […]

Speaker: Guang Yang (Stony Brook University) Title: Securing An Accurate CP Violation Phase Measurement In DUNE Abstract: The requirements for a 5 non-zero delta CP violation phase measurement (if CP violation phase = -pi/2) are a wide-band muon neutrino beam, a 1,300 km baseline, an order of 10s kt fiducial mass detector with high particle […]