Upcoming seminars:
- Monday, August 31, 2020, 12 PM: Noemi Rocco (FNAL)
Title: Lepton-nucleus scattering: from the quasi-elastic to the DIS region
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
The advent of high precision measurements of neutrinos and their oscillations calls for accurate predictions of their interactions with nuclear targets utilized in the detectors.
Achieving a comprehensive description of the different reaction mechanisms active in the broad range of energy relevant for oscillation experiments is a formidable challenge for both particle and nuclear Physics. I will present an overview of recent developments in the description of electroweak interactions within nuclear many-body approaches and discuss the future perspectives to support the experimental effort in this new precision era.
Previous seminars:
- Monday, August 17, 2020, 12 PM: Ningqiang Song (Queen's U)
Title: Microscopic black holes in neutrino telescopes, colliders and cosmology
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper1]
[Paper2]
If the length scale of possible extra dimensions is large enough, the fundamental Planck scale is lowered such that microscopic black holes could be produced in collisions of high-energy particles, which opens up a plethora of novel phenomena in terrestrial detectors and in the early Universe. Microscopic black holes from high-energy cosmic neutrino-nucleon collisions are characterized by unique topologies, distinct energy distributions and unusual ratios of hadronic-to-electronic energy deposition, visible through Cherenkov light echos due to delayed neutron recombination in IceCube-like detectors. In addition, these black holes evaporate through the emission of all particles that are kinematically and thermally allowed, including dark matter. This enables us to study the properties of dark sector from the missing momentum signatures at the next generation of colliders, regardless of the strength of the coupling between dark matter and the Standard Model. The microscopic black holes may account for part or all the dark matter relic density today and leave imprints on CMB, BBN and gamma ray background. Cosmological observations can serve as powerful tools to constrain the fundamental scale and the reheating temperature in the early universe.
- Monday, July 27, 2020, 12 PM: Anna Suliga (NBIA)
Title: The impact of keV sterile neutrinos on core-collapse supernovae
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper1]
[Paper2]
Active neutrinos carry most of the stellar binding energy during the supernova core collapse. If sterile neutrinos exist, they mix with active flavors and can escape the collapsing star carrying away a fraction of that energy. This could lead to a much faster proto-neutron star cooling than the one explaining the observed duration of the neutrino signal from SN 1987A. We have found that the inclusion of the dynamical feedback, which is the change imposed on the supernova background by the sterile neutrino conversions, can lead to the growth of the tau neutrino asymmetry ($\nu_\tau$-$\nu_s$) and change the electron and the electron neutrino fraction ($\nu_e$-$\nu_s$). The new treatment of active-sterile neutrino mixing in supernovae challenges sterile neutrino bounds and leaves the sterile neutrino mass-mixing angle parameter space, relevant for dark matter searches, unconstrained.
- Monday, July 20, 2020, 12 PM: Manibrata Sen (Berkeley)
Title: Probing Nu physics with supernova neutrinos
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper1]
[Paper2]
During a core-collapse supernova (SN), a large number of neutrinos are emitted, carrying away a major fraction of the binding energy of the star. These neutrinos are the only way to probe the dense conditions existing within a dying star. Deep within the stellar interior, neutrino density is so large that neutrino self-interactions start becoming important, leading to "collective flavor oscillations", with fascinating consequences for the spectra measured at the Earth. A future galactic SN would also allow us to probe fundamental neutrino properties like decay, non-standard neutrino interactions, and so on. In this talk, I would like to discuss some of these aspects, and highlight how a galactic SN could act as the ultimate laboratory to probe some of the fundamental neutrino properties.
- Monday, July 13, 2020, 12 PM: Laurie Walk (NBIA)
Title: Understanding the dynamics of core-collapse supernovae through neutrinos
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper1]
[Paper2]
Neutrinos are perhaps the most essential messengers of core-collapse supernovae. These energetic stellar explosions are amongst the brightest objects in the night sky, and yet, our understanding of them remains limited. Neutrinos are abundantly produced deep inside the core of core-collapse supernovae and are thought to play an important role in the delayed neutrino-driven explosion mechanism; the process in which the shock wave stalls within the iron core, and is revived through neutrino heating. Closely mirroring the hydrodynamics of the explosion, neutrinos carry information as they propagate to Earth. In this talk I will focus on how we can use state-of-the-art 3D simulations of core-collapse supernovae to identify unique signatures of hydrodynamical instabilities in the predicted neutrino signal, constrain the properties of a progenitor before the onset of the explosion, as well as characterise its final compact remnant.
- Monday, July 6, 2020, 12 PM: Cecilia Lunardini (Arizona State)
Title: Supernova neutrinos: beyond the basics
[Slides]
[Recording]
- Monday, June 15, 2020, 12 PM: Shirley Li (SLAC)
Title: Neutrino-Nucleus Cross Sections Explained
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
This talk is aimed to provide an introduction to the GeV neutrino-nucleus cross section problem. I will describe how cross section calculations impact experimental measurements, why the calculations are challenging, and where we stand now.
- Monday, June 8, 2020, 12 PM: Mariam Tortola (Valencia)
Title: How robust are the recent CP violation measurements?
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper]
The search for CP violation in the neutrino sector is one of the main goals of current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. The first hints for a non-zero CP-violating phase appeared in global fits to neutrino oscillation data, but only after combining the results from all experiments, since none of them was disfavoring CP conservation on its own. Recently, however, the T2K collaboration reported the observation of CP violation at approximately 3σ. In this talk, we will review the recent T2K results in a more general scenario where CPT is not assumed to be conserved. We will show that, even after combining with NOvA or reactor experiments, the measurement of the CP phase at the level reported by T2K or global neutrino fits is not robust against the CPT-violating hypothesis. We will also present updated bounds on CPT violation in the neutrino sector.
- Monday, May 18, 2020, 12 PM: Matheus Hostert (Minnesota)
Title: Dark Neutrino Sectors and Low Energy Experiments
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper1]
[Paper2]
I will present a simple and minimal three-portal model for neutrino masses with a hidden U(1)' symmetry based on low-scale variants of the seesaw mechanism. In our model, the heavy neutral leptons have large hidden interactions, and through kinetic and scalar mixing, can lead to significantly different experimental signatures from the usual Type-I Seesaw fermions. I will discuss the implications for the Low Energy MiniBooNE excess, the (g-2) of the muon, and other low-energy experimental anomalies, and present a new idea to search for such particles at NA62 in K --> mu e+e-nu channels.
- Monday, April 20, 2020, 12 PM: Zahra Tabrizi (Virginia Tech)
Title: Precision measurements in the DUNE Near Detector Complex
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper1]
[Paper2]
The experimental confirmation of the oscillation of neutrino flavors in the last 2 decades has been a milestone in clarifying the framework of particle physics. Some of neutrino properties can be explained through the current rich data of the neutrino experiments; however, there are still important unanswered questions which need to be clarified. Next-generation, long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments are under serious consideration to answer these questions. The unprecedented neutrino fluxes at these experiments make them suitable for precision calculations of the SM predictions as well as searching for light new physics (NP) via measurements of the trident production and neutrino scattering off electrons and nuclei in the near detectors. We provide estimates of the number and distribution of neutrino-electron scattering and trident events at the DUNE near detector, and use them to study the weak angle.
- Monday, April 6, 2020, 12 PM: Pilar Coloma (Valencia)
Title: Atmospheric long-lived particle searches
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Recording]
[Paper1]
[Paper2]
Long-lived particles with masses at the GeV scale or below could be copiously produced by cosmic rays in the upper layers of the atmosphere. After traveling distances of the order of $\mathcal{O}(15)$~km, they could then decay inside atmospheric neutrino detectors and neutrino telescopes, leaving an observable signal. In this talk I will focus on the production of heavy neutral leptons from the decays of mesons and $\tau$ leptons in the atmosphere, and I will present the limits we obtained using data publicly available from existing experiments.
- Monday, March 23, 2020, 12 PM: Orlando Peres (Campinas)
Title: Neutrino decay: the role of new interactions
[abstract]
[Slides]
[Paper]
I will review the topic of neutrino decay and the possible tests of neutrino decay scenario, with/without daughters in the final state for the forthcoming neutrino experiments. Present constraints are discussed briefly from T2K, MINOS, and KamLand.