We are glad to announce an EPD seminar at 15:00 pm Aug 21th, given by
15:00-16:00 Laurence, Atmorpheric neutrino. His material will come later
16:00-17:00 Nicola Rossi, Status of Ptolemy
The details can be found below. You are welcome to join!
zoom：Meeting URL：https://zoom.us/j/99056431463?pwd=KRnUwcnZpberukiCnw4HtaWtD8PxMN.1
Password：112358
1 Neutrino Oscillations in the Precision Era: Hyper-Kamiokande, the WCTE Experiment and Atmospheric Neutrino Flux Calculation
Abstract:
Hyper-Kamiokande is a next-generation long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment designed to make precision measurements of neutrino oscillation. These measurements will be sensitive to CP violation in the lepton sector with a greater sensitivity than has previously been possible. For Hyper-Kamiokande to achieve its physics goals, systematic uncertainties in the detection and reconstruction of neutrino events must be reduced below current levels. The Water Cherenkov Test Experiment (WCTE) is a 30 ton water Cherenkov detector which was installed in the T9 beamline at CERN from 2024 to 2025. WCTE is designed both as a prototype of new detector technology for Hyper-K and to make measurements which provide a data driven approach to constraining systematic uncertainties. This seminar will discuss the physics program of the WCTE experiment. In addition, work calculating the atmospheric neutrino fluxes with the Bartol Monte Carlo simulation will be presented. This will focus on efforts to use fixed-target hadron production data to reduce the uncertainty in the flux prediction.
About the speaker:
Laurence Cook completed a PhD in particle physics at the University of Oxford in the UK in 2023 which focused on the calculation of the fluxes of atmospheric neutrinos. Laurence worked on the Bartol Atmospheric neutrino flux simulation using fixed target hadron production datasets to model the interaction of cosmic rays in the earth’s atmosphere. This work used methodology developed for neutrino beam flux calculations to tune the neutrino flux using these hadron production datasets. Following his PhD Laurence started a postdoc at TRIUMF in Vancouver on the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment. During this postdoc Laurence’s interests have primarily revolved around the future Intermediate Water Cherenkov Detector (IWCD) for the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment and the Water Cherenkov Test Experiment (WCTE) which completed its physics run earlier this year. Laurence is interested in using WCTE data to provide a data driven approach to constraining systematic uncertainties for Hyper-Kamiokande.
2 STATUS OF THE PTOLEMY PROJECT
Abstract:
The Ptolemy experiment aims to detect the cosmic neutrino background,
which is believed to have formed approximately one second after the Big Bang, as predicted by the Standard Model of Cosmology. Due to the extremely low energy of these relic neutrinos, detection is possible through neutrino capture on beta-decaying isotopes, a process that requires no energy threshold. Tritium, embedded within a carbon-based nanostructure, emerges as a particularly promising target thanks to its favorable interaction cross-section and low beta decay endpoint energy. To enable detection, the Ptolemy collaboration intends to combine a solid-state tritium source with a novel compact electromagnetic filter that utilizes dynamic transverse momentum cancellation. This system will also feature an initial radio-frequency preselection triggered by candidate events. To pave the way for the full-scale detector, a prototype demonstrator is currently being constructed and will be tested at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). This prototype is expected to address key technical challenges and may achieve competitive sensitivity in measuring the absolute neutrino mass.
About the speaker:
Nicola Rossi is a senior researcher at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories of INFN in Italy. He has made key contributions to precision spectroscopy of solar neutrinos and to the first direct detection of the CNO cycle in the Borexino experiment. He is currently involved in the development of the PTOLEMY prototype for measuring the neutrino mass and for demonstrating the technology for detecting the cosmic neutrino background. He is also part of the LEGEND project for the search for neutrinoless double beta decay.