[Seminars] HEP Seminar Today - Feb 2

[Holly Hernandez]

HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS SEMINAR TODAY

Monday February 2, 2015
LASR 162
4:15pm

Speaker: Andrey Elagin (UChicago)

Title: Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay and the Development of Large-Area Picosecond Photo-Detectors

Abstract: Observation of the neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ-decay) would estab- lish that the neutrino is a Majorana particle and would prove that lepton number is not conserved. I will review the history, experimental challenges, and current status of searches for this rare nuclear process.

I will discuss a new idea of using fast photo-detectors to measure direction- ality in 0νββ-decay to suppress backgrounds in a large liquid scintillator detec- tor. Directionality is determined by separating directional Cherenkov light from isotropic scintillation light using photo-detectors with time resolution of ≤100 ps.

The Large-Area Picosecond Photo-Detectors (LAPPD™) provide an attrac- tive option for the separation between Cherenkov and scintillation light to recon- struct the 0νββ-decay event topology. I will discuss the LAPPD™ design and performance.