Neutrino Physics

Guest Speaker

Thursday, 25th July 2024 (19:45 - 22:00)

Venue: Meeting Room

Neutrino physics has a rich history stretching back almost 100 years. First proposed as a solution to an apparent observation of energy and angular momentum conservation violation, the neutrino has subsequently been extensively studied using a variety of experimental techniques. Since 1998, it has been known that the assumption made in the Standard Model of Particle Physics that neutrinos are massless is incorrect. Despite the neutrino's elusive nature, initially thought to be so weakly interacting that they could never be detected, several measurements of different neutrino sources have demonstrated that neutrinos oscillate between flavours. The existence of this oscillation showed that neutrinos do have a (small) non-zero mass. The exact details of this mass are just one of many currently unknown properties of the neutrinos. Perhaps the biggest question of all is whether neutrinos are the solution to the observed matter versus antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. Unsurprisingly, neutrinos and neutrino oscillation continue to be the focus of substantial research efforts around the globe.

In this talk, the concept of neutrinos and their open questions will be introduced, followed by how we measure neutrino oscillation with experiments such as NOvA in the United States. Finally, plans and preparations for the next generation of neutrino experiments such as DUNE, also in the United States, will be explored.

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Speaker: Dr Alexander Booth

Dr Alexander Booth is a Particle Physicist at Queen Mary University of London with a research interest in neutrino oscillations. He obtained his PhD in 2021 performing a measurement of 3 flavour oscillations at the NOvA Experiment, a global scientific collaboration, for which he now co-leads the working group applying machine learning techniques to the analysis of accelerator-based neutrino data. During his career he has spent time at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (USA) and CERN (Switzerland) developing the next generation of neutrino experiments. He is also involved in the science outreach and engagement activity at Queen Mary, co-founding the “MiniPix” branch of the "Physics Research in School Environments (PRiSE)" project.