Kimball Smith Series: Nuclear Weapons Today: Physics and Politics
Join us on April 22nd from 10:30am-12pm in ESC 110 (21 Sachem St.) for a moderated panel followed by small group discussions on nuclear weapons.
Alumni
Wright Lab All Hands Meeting, Antonio Ereditato, Yale, "ONAOSI-Yale undergraduate research experience at Wright Lab"
The Wright Lab community is invited to a weekly meeting on Mondays at 9:30 a.m to hear about and discuss what is going on at the lab.
WIDG Seminar, Glenn Richardson, Yale, “Charge Reconstruction and Simulation in the nEXO Experiment”
Abstract: nEXO is a proposed tonne scale liquid xenon time projection chamber which plans to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay (0vbb) of Xe-136. 0vbb is a hypothetical nuclear process in which two neutrons decay into two protons and two electrons, with the notable absence of any neutrinos. Discovery of this hypothetical phenomena would help answer several questions concerning the mass of the neutrino, such as their Majorana nature. nEXO’s proposed detector design would allow it to search for this interaction with a half-life sensitivity greater than 10^{28} yrs.
NPA Seminar, Steven Murray, Arizona State University, "Forward Modelling Interferometric Observations of the EoR"
Abstract: 21cm observations of the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization, via intensity mapping at z>6, offer a unique and exciting probe into the physics of stellar and galaxy formation and even cosmology. A range of instruments across the globe, including the highly targeted HERA experiment, are currently amassing a wealth of data – in which is buried the signature of the birth of the first stars.
NPA Seminar, Akash Dixit, University of Chicago, "Searching for dark matter with superconducting qubits"
Abstract: Detection mechanisms for low mass bosonic dark matter candidates, such the axion or hidden photon, leverage potential interactions with electromagnetic fields, whereby the dark matter (of unknown mass) on rare occasion converts into a single photon. Current dark matter searches operating at microwave frequencies use a resonant cavity to coherently accumulate the field sourced by the dark matter and a near standard quantum limited (SQL) linear amplifier to read out the cavity signal.
NPA Seminar, Simon Foreman, Perimeter Institute, "Detection of Cosmological 21cm Emission with CHIME"
Abstract: Intensity mapping of redshifted 21cm emission from neutral hydrogen holds great promise for learning about cosmology, as it provides an efficient way to map large volumes of the universe without the need to characterize individual luminous sources. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a cylinder telescope located in Western Canada that was custom-built for this purpose, and that has collected several hundred days’ worth of data since it reached full observational capacity in late 2018.
Dissertation Defense: David Stewart, Yale University, "Jet to Event Activity Correlations in Small System Collisions at STAR"
Heavy ion collisions at the LHC and RHIC produce a quark gluon plasma (QGP), in which quarks and gluons are deconfined into an extended medium. This “fourth phase” of matter is also believed to have been the first material phase of the universe following the Big Bang. In experiment, high energy partons scatter at short time scales and may subsequently lose energy, or are “quenched”, via interactions with the QGP.
NPA Zoom Seminar (Note special date), Pranava Teja Surukuchi, Yale University, "Latest Results from the CUORE Experiment"
The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first bolometric experiment searching for 0νββ decay that has been able to reach the one-tonne mass scale. The detector, located at the LNGS in Italy, consists of an array of 988 TeO2 crystals arranged in a compact cylindrical structure of 19 towers. CUORE began its first physics data run in 2017 at a base temperature of about 10 mK and in April 2021 released its 3rd result of the search for 0νββ, corresponding to a tonne-year of TeO2 exposure.
SPECIAL DATE NPA Zoom Seminar, David Kawall, U Mass, "An anomaly in an anomaly? First results from the Fermilab Muon g-2 Experiment"
The Fermilab muon g-2 experiment just released its first measurement of the positive muon magnetic moment anomaly, a_mu = (g_mu-2)/2 to an accuracy of 0.46 ppm. The anomaly a_mu is of interest since it can be predicted with impressive precision and its value is sensitive, via quantum corrections, to the interactions of the muon with the other particles of the Standard Model. Comparison of measurement results and theoretical predictions tests the completeness of the Standard Model, and a significant discrepancy would indicate the need for new physics.
NPA Zoom Seminar, Liliana Apolinario, LIP, Lisbon, "Novel Jet Reclustering Tools for Heavy-Ion Collisions"
The physics program of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) has brought a unique insight into the hot and dense QCD matter created in such collisions, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). Jet quenching, a collection of medium-induced modifications of the jets’ internal structure that occur through their development in dense QCD matter, has a unique potential to assess the time structure of the produced medium.
