Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2008 Annual Meeting of the Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 53, Number 12
Thursday–Sunday, October 23–26, 2008; Oakland, California
Session BC: Mini-Symposium: Neutrino Properties and Nuclear Physics I |
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Chair: Baha Balantekin, University of Wisconsin Room: Jewett Ballroom A-B |
Friday, October 24, 2008 8:30AM - 9:06AM |
BC.00001: Neutrinos: Particles with Maddeningly Few Properties Invited Speaker: It might be thought that a particle with no charge, half-integer spin, and very little mass could not really be that complicated. Yet it took nearly 70 years to discover that they had any mass at all, and in the process the objects with well-defined mass were found not to have well-defined flavor and vice versa. Exactly what the mass is still remains unknown. The mixing of the quarks, particles that cannot even be observed in isolation, is small but precisely known. But for neutrinos, an angle, $\theta_{13}$, is still missing. Ordinarily it would be trivial to decide whether a particle and an antiparticle were the same or not, and yet a trick of the weak interaction has cloaked this basic property for neutrinos, demanding experiments of heroic scale and difficulty to unmask. What will it take to get the answers? [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2008 9:06AM - 9:18AM |
BC.00002: Into the Depths: Lowering the Energy Threshold at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Gabriel Orebi Gann The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory has successfully demonstrated the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation by observing both the total active solar neutrino flux, via the Neutral Current interaction on deuterium, and the pure $\nu_e$ component via the Charged Current interaction. An improved analysis of SNO data aims to lower the energy threshold of the analysis, resulting in increased statistics and a greater sensitivity to possible distortions in the incident neutrino energy spectrum. This talk discusses some of the improvements made in order to achieve a high precision measurement. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2008 9:18AM - 9:30AM |
BC.00003: Measuring the energy dependence of the $\nu_e$ survival probability at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Stanley Seibert The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory has excellent sensitivity to the solar neutrino energy spectrum through the charged-current interaction with deuterium. Assuming a known $^8$B neutrino spectrum at the production point in the Sun, we can obtain the $\nu_e$ survival probability on Earth as a function of neutrino energy. This talk describes a new method for obtaining these survival probability functions directly from the SNO data set using a maximum likelihood fit. The kernel estimation technique is used to build unbinned, non-parametric, multidimensional probability density functions from Monte Carlo event samples which can be reweighted on-the-fly as the fit parameters describing the survival probability function are varied. This method also allows the survival probability function to be obtained simultaneously for upward and downward-going (night and day) neutrinos for tests of $\nu_e$ regeneration in the Earth. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2008 9:30AM - 9:42AM |
BC.00004: Neutrino physics with cold atoms Melissa Jerkins Recent advances in atomic slowing and cooling are opening new avenues through which to explore neutrino properties. I will discuss several potential applications of these technologies to neutrino research, including new concepts for tritium $\beta$-decay and neutrino Mossbauer experiments. The absolute mass scale of the neutrino has long been probed through tritium $\beta$-decay, but these technically challenging experiments have so far been unable to detect the neutrino mass. By utilizing a slow, cold beam of tritium atoms to create the tritium source, one could detect both the helium ion and the $\beta$, which implies that the neutrino mass could be directly reconstructed. I will present simulation results and discuss the feasibility of both a three-body tritium $\beta$-decay experiment and a boundstate tritium $\beta$-decay experiment. I will also discuss preliminary explorations of a neutrino Mossbauer experiment in which advances in magnetic slowing of atoms allow trace detection of tritium created in recoilless reverse tritium beta decay. Observation of the Mossbauer effect with neutrinos would be an exciting first step toward tabletop neutrino oscillation experiments. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2008 9:42AM - 9:54AM |
BC.00005: Setting Limits on the Local Density of the Cosmic Neutrino Background Using KATRIN Asher Kaboth The relic neutrinos of the cosmic neutrino background are nearly as numerous as the photons in the cosmic microwave background. However, due to their low energy---predicted to be 1.9K in the Standard Model---they are very difficult to detect directly. One process, neutrino capture on tritium ($\nu_e + \mbox{T} \rightarrow ^3\mbox{He} + e^-$), presents a threshold-free way to detect such low energy neutrinos. Such a process would show up as a spike in the tritium beta decay spectrum at 1$\times m_{\nu_e}$ above the beta decay endpoint. The KATRIN experiment, which uses tritium beta decay to measure the electron neutrino mass, has potential sensitivity to this neutrino capture process if the local density or the cross section is significantly greater than expected. This talk describes KATRIN's sensitivity to this process and its implications for the cosmic neutrino background. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2008 9:54AM - 10:06AM |
BC.00006: Coherent Neutrino Detection at SONGS Juan Collar, C. Aalseth, P. Barbeau, A. Bernstein, N. Bowden, J. Colaresi, S. Dazeley, P. de Lurgio, G. Drake, J.E. Fast, C.H. Greenberg, T.W. Hossbach, J.D. Kephart, J. Lund, M.G. Marino, H.S. Miley, J.L. Orrell, D. Reyna, R.G.H. Robertson, L. Sadler, R. Talaga, O. Tench, T.D. Van Wechel, J.F. Wilkerson, M. Yocum An effort to demonstrate (anti)neutrino coherent elastic scattering off nuclei is underway in one of the tendon galleries around the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) reactors. We are currently employing p-type point contact (PPC) germanium detectors as the target. These devices combine a sub-keV energy threshold with a mass ($\sim$1 kg) large-enough to observe the effect, profiting from the very large cross section expected. An overview of activities and prospects will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2008 10:06AM - 10:18AM |
BC.00007: CLEAR:Prospects for a Low Threshold Neutrino Experiment at the SNS James Nikkel CLEAR (Coherent Low Energy A(Nuclear) Recoils) is a proposed detector that will utilize noble liquid targets to measure coherent neutral current neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering. During this talk, I will discuss the CLEAR proposal and the physics reach of this detector installed at the Spallation Neutron Source. [Preview Abstract] |
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