Bulletin of the American Physical Society
84th Annual Meeting of the APS Southeastern Section
Volume 62, Number 13
Thursday–Saturday, November 16–18, 2017; Milledgeville, Georgia
Session J1: Physics at ORNL |
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Chair: Chang-Hong Yu, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Room: MSU Building University Banquet Room A |
Saturday, November 18, 2017 8:30AM - 9:00AM |
J1.00001: Search for time-reversal violation with the neutron electric dipole moment at the Spallation Neutron Source Invited Speaker: Kent Leung The existence of a permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) for a fundamental particle, such as the neutron, would provide a new source of time-reversal violation in our physical laws. Time-reversal violation is equivalent to charge-parity (CP) violation via the CPT theorem. Several orders of magnitude larger CP violation beyond that currently observed and predicted in the standard model of particle physics is required to explain the matter over anti-matter dominance of our Universe. The nEDM at SNS experiment will provide a sensitivity around two orders of magnitude better than the current world limit. Our experiment will utilize the FNPB cold neutron beam facility to produce ultracold neutrons inside our measurement cells to be stored and studied for around a thousand seconds. Various unique properties of 0.4 K superfluid helium and hyper polarized $^3$He atoms in our cryogenic apparatus will be exploited to study the precession of the neutron spins in the presence of a large electric field to unprecedented accuracies. The motivation, description, and updates of our ``flagship'' nuclear physics experiment will be given in this talk. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, November 18, 2017 9:00AM - 9:30AM |
J1.00002: First Results from the \sc{Majorana Demonstrator} Invited Speaker: David C. Radford The {\sc Majorana Demonstrator} experiment has been operating since October 2016 inside a clean room 4850 feet underground in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD. The {\scDemonstrator} is searching for neutrinoless double beta (0$\nu\beta\beta$) decay in $^{76}$Ge using 29.7 kg of detectors made from germanium enriched to 88\% in that isotope. If observed, 0$\nu\beta\beta$ decay will prove that the neutrino and the anti-neutrino are identical and that lepton number is not a conserved quantity. It will also provide hints as to how the Big Bang produced more matter than it did antimatter. The primary goal of the {\sc Majorana Demonstrator} is to show that backgrounds can be reduced to a value low enough to justify a large 0$\nu\beta\beta$ experiment using $^{76}$Ge. More than six months of data from the {\sc Demonstrator} have been analyzed, and initial results for the background index will be presented, together with an outlook for the future sensitivity reach of the experiment. Future prospects for LEGEND, a new collaboration formed with the goal of fielding a tonne-scale $^{76}$Ge 0$\nu\beta\beta$ experiment, will also be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, November 18, 2017 9:30AM - 10:00AM |
J1.00003: PROSPECT: The Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment Invited Speaker: James Matta The PROSPECT experiment is designed to probe short-baseline neutrino oscillations and precisely measure the $^{235}$U reactor antineutrino spectrum. Using a $\sim{}\hspace{-0.5em}4$-ton segmented $^6$Li-loaded liquid scintillator detector, PROSPECT will probe the sterile neutrino best fit region to $4\sigma$ within one year of operation at distances of $7$-$12$ meters from the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). Additionally, the measurement of the $^{235}$U spectrum at $4.5\%/\sqrt{E}$ will address the $4$-$6$MeV spectral “bump” observed in recent measurements by the $\theta_{13}$ experiments. This talk will discuss the design, experimental program, backgrounds, and discovery potential of PROSPECT. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, November 18, 2017 10:00AM - 10:30AM |
J1.00004: Neutrinos at the Spallation Neutron Source Invited Speaker: Jason Newby The neutrinos produced at the Spallation Neutron Source are ideally suited for a set of exploratory and high-precision neutrino physics measurements due to the accelerator's intensity, pulsed-structure, and proton beam-energy. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently converted a service corridor only 20 meters from the SNS target into a dedicated neutrino laboratory capable of supporting ton scale experiments. The COHERENT experiment is the first to take advantage of this new capability at ORNL with the deployment of four neutrino detectors. The first installed instrument was a 14kg CsI detector that recently completed two years of SNS exposure to make the first observation of coherent neutrino nuclear scattering. This most frequent of all neutrino interactions was predicted over forty years ago, but had eluded observation due to enormous experimental challenges. This basic interaction now provides a new tool to address a host of physics topics including electromagnetic properties, searches for physics beyond the standard model, and nuclear form factors. The experimental features of this new capability at ORNL will be presented. The recent first-observation measurement and the anticipated results from currently operating detectors will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
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