Biographical Sketch:
Glenn Richardson was a PhD student at Yale University working in collaboration with the FPD group at SLAC national labs. He received his undergraduate degrees in physics and mathematics from UC Berkeley in 2019. After graduation he worked as a research assistant in the Warp-X group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab before applying to graduate schools. In 2020 he began his PhD at Yale University working with David Moore. From 2023-2024 Glenn was at SLAC national labs and Stanford University, working with Brian Lenardo and Giorgio Gratta.
Research:
Glenn’s research focused on the development of new technology and techniques for liquid xenon time projection chambers (LXe TPCs). In particular, Glenn worked on designing and prototyping the charge readout system for the proposed nEXO neutrinoless double beta decay detector. He also developed new techniques for studying solar neutrinos and dark matter with LXe TPCs via charged-current interactions which make use of the isomeric states of 136Cs to tag the interaction. As part of this work, Glenn made improved measurements of the nuclear structure of 136Cs using the GRIFFIN array at TRIUMF.
Education:
BA Physics & BA Mathematics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, 2019
Ph.D. Physics, Yale University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, 2019
Honors & Awards:
In 2023, Glenn was awarded the DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) fellowship which supported his work at SLAC national labs.
Experiments:
nEXO and GRIFFIN
Advisor: David Moore
Degree Year: 2026
Dissertation Title: Probing the Universe with 136Xe - The Physics Reach of nEXO
Dissertation Abstract: nEXO is a proposed 5-tonne liquid xenon time projection chamber designed to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 136Xe with a half-life sensitivity better than 10{28} years. Observation of this rare, Standard Model–forbidden process would provide direct evidence of new physics and could help address several open questions, including the origin of the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The first part of this talk will focus on recent work to develop and prototype the charge readout modules for nEXO, which will be key to enabling energy reconstruction and signal/background discrimination in nEXO’s analysis. The second part will highlight efforts to expand the physics program of nEXO by using charged-current interactions (ve + 136Xe → 136Cs* + e-) to make background-free measurements of solar neutrinos and fermionic dark matter. Finally, I will discuss preliminary work done at TRIUMF to measure additional nuclear structure properties of 136Cs, which will provide crucial input for both these efforts.
