miniTimeCube for Neutrino Physics and Applications

by Mr Viacheslav Lee (Physics, UH)

Friday Dec 13, 2013, 1:00 PM → 2:00 PM Pacific/Honolulu

420 (Watanabe Hall)

In this talk I will briefly review fundamentals of neutrino physics, neutrino oscillations phenomenon, the lepton sector in the Standard Model, the reactor antineutrino anomaly, and then will move on and cover a result of a new approach to neutrino propogation and oscillations recently obtained by V. Naumov et al. EPJC73(2013)2627. Hopefully, there will be a chapter in my thesis testing the new model which claims to resolve the “Reactor antineutrino anomaly”, Mueller et al. PRD83(2011)073006. The miniTimeCube (mTC) with its upcoming demonstration at the NIST research nuclear reactor facility might turn out to be the best to check that model. The second half of my talk focuses on the mTC itself, the fascinating and unique project I've been working on. The main features of the detector including a 2.2 liter plastic scintillator loaded with Boron for neutron capture, 1562 channels of photodetectors and picosecond waveform digitizing electronics, streaming data acquisition. The basics of analysis and timeline progress will be presented. The mTC is a prototype for a bigger detector, but in current configuration it is going to be the world's smallest detector of reactor antineutrinos, or any neutrinos for that matter. With an mTC type of detector, in principle, we will be able to detect electron antineutrinos from a nuclear reactor in real time, reconstruct direction, energy and interaction vertex of the incoming antineutrino. Many future options are possible. Thesis advancement to candidacy examination, committee meeting following presentation.