Events

Event Information:

• Tue

  20

  Feb

  2018

  Colloquium: Searching for CP-Violation with the DUNE Experiment

  4:00 pmLewis Hall 101

  Dan Cherdack
  Department of Physics
  Colorado State University

  Searching for CP-Violation with the DUNE Experiment

  Of the four known fundamental forces the weak force has many unique properties. It is the only standard model force that couples to all known fermions, that has massive exchange bosons, and that induces particle flavor changes. Even more surprising is that the weak force maximally violates parity symmetry, and has even been demonstrated to break charge-parity (CP) symmetry, meaning the weak force interacts differently with matter and anti-matter. This last property may hold the key to understanding several fundamental mysteries of the universe from the three-generation structure of matter, to the missing link between the big bang and the observed universe.

  Neutrinos only interact via the weak force which means they are hard to detect, but provide a unique test bed for studying the weak interaction. Over the past few decades it was discovered that neutrinos have mass and change flavors. Studying the way neutrinos change flavors, termed neutrino oscillations, allows us to search for a new source of CP-violation. The next-generation Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will usher in an era of high precision neutrino physics with the worlds most intense neutrino beam and high resolution Liquid Argon (LAr) Time Projection Chamber (TPCs) detectors. The Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program will employ three LAr TPCs, which will provide and excellent test bed for LAr TPC R&D, and allow for many important measurements crucial to DUNE. I will discuss the theoretical framework we use to describe neutrino oscillations, and the exciting opportunities and new challenges afforded us by these experiments.