Studying the Ghostly Neutrino Particle
Ava Easley
Undergraduate Researcher
Finance Major (Kelley School of Business)
Walter Pettus
Faculty Mentor
Walter Pettus (College of Arts & Sciences)
Project Description
The neutrino is a fundamental particle, and yet we have surprisingly large gaps in our knowledge of its properties. For starters, we don't even know its mass. My group has a leading role in two experimental programs that will elucidate this question - one requiring ultra-low-background conditions in a deep underground experimental site, and the other developing a completely new detector technology to study decays with higher precision. If all goes well, we can answer the what and the why of neutrino mass, filling in this long-standing hole in our fundamental picture of the building blocks of everything.
Technology or Computational Component
There are lots of projects that can be tailored to the individual preferences of candidates. To name a few: - data analysis from the experiments, typically in a python framework with matplotlib visualization - programming microcontrollers (e.g., Arduino, Raspberry Pi) to monitor experimental conditions - container orchestration to automatically maintain system controls and handle crash states