WIDG Seminar: Sierra Wilde, Yale, “Let There Be Light… in Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Detectors”

Event time: 
Tuesday, October 31, 2023 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Location: 
Wright Lab (), WL-216 (Conference Room) See map
272 Whitney Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay is a powerful tool for learning more about the properties of neutrinos and the fundamental behaviors of the universe. Liquid Xenon (LXe) time projection chambers, such as EXO-200 and nEXO, are capable of doing highly sensitive searches for this decay using enriched Xe-136. Scintillation light emitted from the Xe has previously been an underutilized tool, but has great potential for analysis and event detection. Optical simulations of EXO-200 and nEXO will be used to characterize both detectors’ responses. The simulations of EXO-200 can be used to reconstruct the lightmap of the detector, which will aid in validating the predictions being made about nEXO’s light response and the analysis tools being developed to improve nEXO’s sensitivity. Tests of silicon photomultipliers in LXe will determine their properties and performance in nEXO. This talk presents studies that will improve the understanding of the role scintillation plays in LXe detectors and how to better utilize the data that it gives.

Open to: 
undergraduate