PhD project: The NOVA/DUNE experiments
Supervisor: Prof. Ryan Nichol
DUNE is a flagship next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation
experiment. Currently under construction and due to turn on later this
decade, DUNE will unravel many of the outstanding questions in neutrino
physics including how neutrino masses are distributed and the size of
the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the lepton sector. These measurements
are of fundamental importance for particle physics and cosmology.
Comprising 40 kilotons of liquid argon situated deep underground, DUNE
will also have a broader science programme including supernova detection
and solar neutrino physics.
This project will focus on the development of the oscillation analysis,
which will ultimately be responsible for producing DUNE's headline
results. Key to the success of the experiment will be to fully exploit
the information from the sophisticated Near Detector complex, whose
design is currently being finalized, in order to control uncertainties
in the neutrino beam flux and neutrino interaction cross-sections to the
percent level.
The NOvA experiment, currently taking data in the world's most powerful
neutrino beam, is a leader in the current generation of experiments.
Many of the analysis techniques required for DUNE are being developed at
NOvA, and the project could potentially involve substantial
contributions to the NOvA analysis.
The PhD would come with the opportunity to spend a period of time based
at Fermilab in the US.
For more details please contact r.nichol at ucl.ac.uk