Wright Lab researchers developing new neutrino detector technologies
May 5, 2021
A team of Wright Lab researchers from the Yale High Energy Neutrino Physics group, including associate research scientist Domenico Franco and graduate students Lee Hagaman and Giacomo Scanavini, have recently joined the research and development (R&D) effort for a new detector technology that is being developed for use by the international ArgonCube collaboration. ArgonCube, with its novel modular Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) detector design and innovative technique of pixelated charge readout, will serve as the near detector for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE).
DUNE is a planned neutrino experiment with a detector composed of multiple LArTPCs. This experiment will send a high energy neutrino beam over a distance of 1,300 km from Fermilab in Batavia, IL to the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota. DUNE will be used to study a phenomenon known as CP-violation, which may help explain the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe and determine the neutrino mass hierarchy; as well as to explore low-background physics, such as proton decay and supernova detection, to measure the parameters that characterize three-flavor neutrino oscillations with an unprecedented precision that will improve understanding of the oscillation mechanism.