[Seminars] HEP Seminar Today

[Holly Hernandez]

HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS SEMINAR TODAY

Monday January 12, 2015
LASR 162
4:15pm

Speaker: Michael Wilking (Stoney Brook)

Title: The nuPRISM Detector: An Experimental Method to Remove Neutrino Interaction Uncertainties from Oscillation Experiments

Abstract: With the discovery of the last neutrino mixing angle, theta13, neutrino oscillation experiments are now entering an era of precision measurements. However, the ultimate precision of these experiments will be limited by our understanding of neutrino interactions with nuclear targets. Neutrino oscillations are a function of neutrino energy, and the energy of an incident neutrino can currently only be inferred from the outgoing lepton kinematics, and possibly some measure of the final state hadronic energy. This relationship is highly model dependent, and the currently available models are evolving rapidly and are poorly understood.

The nuPRISM detector provides an experimental mechanism to largely avoid the complications associated with neutrino-nucleus modeling. By measuring the final states of neutrinos detected across a wide range of off-axis angles relative to the neutrino beam direction, it is possible to experimentally measure the expected final state for any oscillated neutrino energy spectrum. Other incident neutrino energy spectra, such as nearly mono-energetic beams, can be constructed to make novel, new neutrino cross section measurements, such as the first ever measurements of neutral current interactions as a function of neutrino energy.

The nuPRISM experimental setup also allows for a unique measurement of sterile neutrino oscillations, which are a function of the ratio of detector distance to neutrino energy (L/E). Rather than constructing a traditional near and far detector to observe the same beam energy spectrum (i.e. 2 L's and 1 E), nuPRISM consists of a single detector that observes many energy spectra (1 L and many E), which provides a unique probe of many of the suggested explanations of the LSND/MiniBooNE event excess.

The detector concept, physics impact, and progress toward the first nuPRISM demonstrator detector in the J-PARC neutrino beamline will be discussed.