High Energy Physics Seminar

Series: High Energy Physics Seminar Series

Thinking Fast, Building Big: Opportunities for Neutrino Physics Using Fast Timing and Large Area Photodetectors

Matthew Wetstein, University of Chicago,

The neutrino physics community faces stark technological tradeoffs between conventional detectors that offer large target volumes but poor resolution, and advanced, high resolution detector systems with limited scalability. In this talk, I present a third way. By fundamentally reinventing the photodetector, it becomes possible to develop high-resolution Water Cherenkov (WC) or scintillation-based neutrino detectors capable of more complete event reconstruction using precision measurements of the positions and drift times of optical photons. I will give a brief overview of the Large Area Picosecond Photodetector (LAPPD) project, an effort to develop compact, microchannel plate (MCP) photomultiplier tubes capable of sub-millimeter, sub-nanosecond spatial resolutions and with potential for scalability to large experiments. I will also discuss steps taken towards the design and construction of experimental LAPPD-based neutrino detectors, and the potential applications for such detector systems in answering the important questions of neutrino physics.

Event Sponsors:

Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy - More events from this Sponsor

For more information, please contact Carol Silberstein by phone at 6685 or by email at [email protected] or visit http://theory.caltech.edu/people/carol/seminar.html.