Yale Postdoctoral Trainees

WIDG Seminar: Anthony Hodges, Georgia State, "Quantifying Properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma via Jet Modification"

The study of jet modification is a critical tool for understanding the properties of the hot, dense medium created in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions known as the Quark-Gluon Plasma. Jets are collimated sprays of energetic particles that result from the fragmentation of hard-scattered partons. However, in heavy-ion collisions, the partons that create these jets traverse the QGP medium, losing energy either by interaction with the internal color field, or by collisions with the other constituents of the medium.

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.

WIDG Seminar, Samuel Hedges, Duke University, "Experimental Tests of Low Energy Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions at the Spallation Neutron Source"

The intense flux of neutrinos produced at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) make it an ideal location to pursue studies of low energy neutrino-nucleus interactions. The COHERENT experiment has deployed a suite of detectors to the SNS to measure coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS), a standard model process predicted more than forty years ago but only recently observed. CEvNS plays an important role in the evolution of a supernova, is a background for WIMP searches, and has potential applications for monitoring reactor neutrinos.

WIDG Seminar: Samuel Hedges, Duke University, Experimental Tests of Low Energy Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions at the Spallation"

The intense flux of neutrinos produced at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) make it an ideal location to pursue studies of low energy neutrino-nucleus interactions. The COHERENT experiment has deployed a suite of detectors to the SNS to measure coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS), a standard model process predicted more than forty years ago but only recently observed. CEvNS plays an important role in the evolution of a supernova, is a background for WIMP searches, and has potential applications for monitoring reactor neutrinos.

WIDG Seminar: Luna Zagorac, Yale, "Linear Approximations to UltraLight Dark Matter Stationary States"

UltraLight Dark Matter (ULDM) is an axion-like dark matter candidate with an extremely small particle mass. The dynamics of ULDM are governed by the Schrodinger-Poisson system of coupled differential equations for which the ground state solution is a spherically symmetric soliton. While a purely solitonic profile is incompatible with observational constraints on dark matter halos, mergers of ULDM solitons create halos with solitonic central cores, but with NFW-like behaviour at large radii.

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.

WIDG Seminar: Emily Kuhn, Yale, "Calibration Instrumentation for the Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment"

The Hydrogen Intensity Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX) is a 21cm radio telescope array to be deployed in South Africa. It will consist of 1024 six meter parabolic dishes, and will map much of the southern sky over the course of four years. HIRAX is designed to improve constraints on the dark energy equation of state through measurements of large scale structure at high redshift, and will additionally monitor transients such as fast radio bursts (FRBs) and pulars, as is currently done with CHIME in the Northern Hemisphere.

WIDG Seminar: Jiaxiang Wang, Yale, "Progress on Probing Non-Newtonian Gravity using Levitated Microspheres"

Optomechanical systems can provide new methods to probe short-range dynamics due to their high precision and control. Previous work with these techniques has searched for millicharged particles and recoils from composite dark matter using levitated nanogram mass sensors, offering new results complementary to the large-scale experiments. In my talk I will present our progress on searching for non-Newtonian gravity-like interactions, including a possible Yukawa-like deviation from Newton’s law at micron distance.

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.

NPA Zoom Seminar, Sergei Gleyzer, University of Alabama and CERN, "Deep Learning for High-Energy Physics and Strong Gravitational Lensing Cosmology"

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is delivering the highest energy proton-proton collisions ever recorded in the laboratory, permitting a detailed exploration of elementary particle physics at the highest energy frontier. It is uniquely positioned to detect and measure the rare phenomena that can shape our knowledge of new interactions and possibly resolve the present tensions of the Standard Model.