Speaker:
Pedro Ochoa-Ricoux
Institution:
UCI
Date:
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Time:
3:30 pm
Location:
RH 101
Abstract:
Despite the great progress achieved in the last two decades, neutrinos remain among the least understood fundamental particles to have been experimentally observed. As the most intense man-made sources of neutrinos ever built, nuclear reactors have provided an ideal ground to study these ghostly particles ever since their discovery in the late fifties. In this talk I will give an overview of the state of affairs in reactor neutrino physics with a focus on our work at UCI. I will review the latest results from Daya Bay, a mature and very successful experiment whose accolades include the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the discovery of a third type of neutrino oscillation. I will also present an overview of the JUNO experiment, which in 2021 will become the largest and most precise liquid scintillator neutrino detector ever constructed. I will end with a brief description of the tantalizing prospects for a novel neutrino detection technique that is inspired from the technology first developed for reactor antineutrino detection by Frederick Reines and his team.
Despite the great progress achieved in the last two decades, neutrinos remain among the least understood fundamental particles to have been experimentally observed. As the most intense man-made sources of neutrinos ever built, nuclear reactors have provided an ideal ground to study these ghostly particles ever since their discovery in the late fifties. In this talk I will give an overview of the state of affairs in reactor neutrino physics with a focus on our work at UCI. I will review the latest results from Daya Bay, a mature and very successful experiment whose accolades include the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the discovery of a third type of neutrino oscillation. I will also present an overview of the JUNO experiment, which in 2021 will become the largest and most precise liquid scintillator neutrino detector ever constructed. I will end with a brief description of the tantalizing prospects for a novel neutrino detection technique that is inspired from the technology first developed for reactor antineutrino detection by Frederick Reines and his team.
Host:
Kevork Abazaijan
Tim Tait