Reuniones de Cataluña - Novel Directions in the Era of Specialization

Europe/Madrid
Beget, Spain

Beget, Spain

Mansión de Monik ya Willo, Beget, Cataluña, 17867
Kevin Croker (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
Description
This small, intra-disciplinary, conference brings exemplary graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from across Asia, Europe, and the United States together in the heart of the Spanish Pyrenees. Our approach is inspired by the initial Rencontres de Moriond, though our aim is a slightly larger breadth of topics with emphasis on historical context. Renuniones de Cataluña will broadly focus on the experimental confrontation of extensions to General Relativity and comprehensive unifications, such as String Theory. Both theoretical routes can lead to inflationary cosmologies, with testable deviations from the predictions of General Relativity in a wide range of cosmological observables. A familiarity with the current instrumental state of the art is crucial to the identification of novel measurement targets and techniques. To this end, invitees with observational and instrumental specializations in particle phenomenology and instrumentation, cold atom metrology, fast electronics, neutrino mass measurements, and gravitational radiation will interact closely with invitees with theoretical specializations in quantum fields, multiscalar-tensor extensions to General Relativity, String phenomenology, and quantum tomography. Attendees will have the additional option to participate in a community outreach event to local school-age children, their parents, and the general public. The conference is organized through the University of Hawai`i, with the support of the Government of Camprodon.
Regional Maps
Participants
  • Brandon Wilson
  • Christine Claessens
  • Christopher Jackson
  • Cody Kala
  • Glenn Jocher
  • Kevin Croker
  • Klemens Lautenbach
  • Kurtis Nishimura
  • Nelson Darkwah Oppong
  • Ryo Matsuda
  • Taisiya Mineeva
    • 8:00 AM 8:30 AM
      Breakfast 30m
    • 9:00 AM 1:00 PM
      Nature Excursion 4h

      (Weather permitting)

    • 1:30 PM 2:30 PM
      Lunch 1h
    • 3:00 PM 6:00 PM
      Registration 3h
    • 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
      Dinner 1h 30m
    • 8:00 AM 9:00 AM
      Breakfast 1h
    • 9:00 AM 12:00 PM
      Session I: Introductory & Background Lectures
      Convener: Mr Christopher Jackson (University of Oregon)
      • 9:00 AM
        Quantum Information, the Measurement Problem, and Tomography 1h
        Quantum Mechanics has been recognized as a peculiar theory since it’s conception. Entanglement was a big objection which since has been proven to be very real. The Measurement Problem is another big one that we still don’t understand (unless you’re a QBist!) Quantum Tomography first emerged as a method for measuring quantum states and is the clearest demonstration of what it means to be ``quantum.'' It is my personal belief that a complete understanding of quantum tomography will resolve the measurement problem.
        Speaker: Mr Christopher Jackson (University of Oregon)
      • 10:30 AM
        B-factories and the quest for CP-violation 1h
        In 1975 the MARK I experiment discovered the 3rd letpon family in form of the tau. Two years later the b quark, as the manifestation of the 3rd quark family which was predicted by Kobayashi and Maskawa to explain CP violation in the Standard Model, was found at Fermilab. The team around Lederman discovered the Upsilon(1S), a narrow bound state of a b and an anti-b quark, the so-called bottomonium. After 4 years of spectroscopical investigations, the Upsilon(4S) as n=4 radial excitation of the Upsilon(1S), was discovered at the Cornell storage ring. Another 3 years later the CLEO experiment found the B mesons, states of a b-quark and a lighter quark. One of the surprises was the fact that the Upsilon(4S) is decaying with more than 96% to B-mesons. This significant discovery lead to the so called B meson ,,factories'' BaBar at SLAC and Belle at KEK. Both operating most of the time with center of mass energies at the Upsilon(4S), and thus producing millions of B meson pairs per day. Due to their high statistics Belle and BaBar where able to detect CP-violation in the B-sector in 1999. After the discovery of CP violation in the K-system this was an important step to show that CP-violation is a principle of nature and not only a coincidence bound to one particular observation. Theoretically CP violation arises from two complex phases in the CKM (Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa) matrix, if applied to particle anti-particle states. In my presentation, I will shortly review the historic development, and then explain how CP violation is formulated in the Standard Model and how the measurement at Belle was performed.
        Speaker: Mr Klemens Lautenbach (JLU Giessen)
    • 10:00 AM 10:15 AM
      Coffee & Tea 15m
    • 1:00 PM 2:00 PM
      Lunch 1h
    • 4:30 PM 7:30 PM
      Session II: Introductory & Background Lectures
      Convener: Mr Cody Kala (Stanford University)
      • 4:30 PM
        A Quick Review of Fast Waveform Sampling 1h
        Despite vast increases in capabilities and accessibility of commercial electronics, experimentalists frequently find that designs based on purely commercial components cannot meet their specifications. In a number of high energy physics and astrophysics applications, commercial analog-to-digital converters have been deemed unable to deliver required specifications in channel density, sampling rate, or power consumption. This has led to a family of custom application specific integrated circuits designs based on delay line sampling of switched capacitor arrays. I will discuss some of these chips and the experiments that they have helped to enable, along with some personal anecdotes illustrating the promises and pitfalls of this technology.
        Speaker: Kurtis Nishimura (Ultralytics)
      • 6:00 PM
        Highly precise and accurate atomic clocks - Introduction to optical clocks 1h
        Todays optical clocks outperform the best caesium clocks which still are the primary frequency standard. In this talk, I will give a general introduction into optical clocks. Historic experiments that harness atomic clocks for precision measurements as well as the basic elements of optical clocks, namely an ultra-stable laser and an atomic frequency reference are discussed.
        Speaker: Mr Nelson Darkwah Oppong (JILA/University of Colorado at Boulder)
    • 5:30 PM 5:45 PM
      Coffee & Tea 15m
    • 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
      Dinner 1h 30m
    • 8:00 AM 9:00 AM
      Breakfast 1h
    • 9:00 AM 12:00 PM
      Session III: Introductory & Background Lectures
      Convener: Mr Nelson Darkwah Oppong (JILA/University of Colorado at Boulder)
      • 9:00 AM
        Direct neutrino mass experiments 1h
        While the neutrino is the most abundant elementary particle in the universe its absolute mass remains an undetermined parameter of the standard model. After it was long presumed to be massless the discovery of the quantum mechanical phenomenon of neutrino oscillation provides the evidence that neutrinos posses a non-zero mass. Over the last decades various experimental techniques have pushed for ever higher energy precisions and thereby gradually reduced the upper mass limit of the electron neutrino down to currently 2eV/c², as established by the Mainz and Troitsk experiments. In this contribution, the history, status and perspective of different approaches to derive the neutrino mass are presented. The focus lies on direct neutrino mass experiments which investigate the kinematics of tritium beta decays.
        Speaker: Ms Christine Claessens (JGU Mainz)
      • 10:30 AM
        A FUTURE for Journals 1h
        Structured as a collaborative discussion, we overview well-known failure modes within contemporary scientific literature publication processes, motivating the presentation of a novel publication model implemented upon distributed overlay networks in the OSI Internet and Application layers. Principally, we aim to tease out key problems researchers encounter through the publication process with various journals, identifying potential solutions with a high adoptability factor. Discussion begins with a brief overview of the history of formal scientific publication, in particular focussing on the relatively recent phenomenon of open access journals. We then review established research that highlights systematic biases and undesirable behaviours within scientific literature to date, also inviting open discussion of realizable improvements over these current failure modes. Finally, by presenting a high-level model of a completely distributed journaling system based upon the current open-source software packages git-annex, gittorrent and IPFS, we emphasize the feasibility and desirable features of an essentially free and completely open scientific journal.
        Speaker: Brandon Wilson (Waseda University)
    • 10:00 AM 10:15 AM
      Coffee & Tea 15m
    • 1:00 PM 2:00 PM
      Lunch 1h
    • 4:30 PM 7:30 PM
      Session IV: Background & Introductory Lectures
      Convener: Kurtis Nishimura (Ultralytics)
      • 4:30 PM
        String theory and its relation with particle phenomenology and cosmology 1h
        String theory has become one of the strongest candidates for the ultimate theory, a theory which explains all the phenomena in the universe. Although much progress has been made so far, we are now facing a serious problem, the string landscape. In this talk I will show how the concept of string landscape comes about, why it's a problem from both theoretical and phenomenological standpoints, and what are some possible solutions.
        Speaker: Mr Ryo Matsuda (Kavli IPMU)
      • 6:00 PM
        Hadronization in nuclear medium: phenomenology and instrumentation 1h
        Hadronization is a process of transitioning from colored partons, quarks and gluons, to the colorless objects -hadrons. It lays in the heart of fundamental theory of strong interaction, QCD, where it can be factorized into two parts. When a highly virtual parton radiates gluons or splits into a quark-antiquark pair, one can theoretically describe this process by QCD evolution equations. However, when the final “bleaching” of partons into hadrons takes place, this process is dominated by nonperturbative QCD effects and cannot be addressed theoretically. For that reason, description of hadronization process often relies on modeling and phenomenology which are tested against an actual data. Over the past couple decades, a wealth of data have become available from DESY, Jefferson Lab, Fermilab, and RHIC which all bring different kinds of information on parton propagation and hadron formation. The most direct information on hadron formation comes from Deep-Inelastic Scattering (DIS) and will be discussed in the present talk in the context of Jefferson Lab data obtained using a 5 GeV electron beam and CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) in Hall B. It is to be hoped that the studies of cold QCD matter, once matured, can influence the interpretation of what is seen in the hot dense systems (LHC), in addition to their intrinsic interest for QCD.
        Speaker: Taisiya Mineeva (Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María)
    • 5:30 PM 5:45 PM
      Coffee & Tea 15m
    • 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
      Dinner 1h 30m
    • 8:00 AM 9:00 AM
      Breakfast 1h
    • 9:00 AM 12:00 PM
      Session V: Introductory & Background Lectures
      Convener: Kevin Croker (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
      • 9:00 AM
        Antineutrino Global Map 2015 1h
        Antineutrino Global Map 2015 (www.ultralytics.com/agm2015) is an experimentally informed model of Earth's surface electron antineutrino flux over the 0 to 11 MeV energy spectrum. The open source AGM2015 provides fundamental data for experiments, assists in strategic detector placement to determine neutrino mass hierarchy, and aids in identifying undeclared nuclear reactors. Current geological knowledge of the composition of the lithosphere is leveraged by the estimated flux from the mantle, as measured by underground detectors (KamLAND and Borexino), to calculate the planetary antineutrino luminosity at 3.4 (+2.3/-2.2) x 10^25 electron antineutrinos per second.
        Speaker: Glenn Jocher (Ultralytics LLC)
      • 10:30 AM
        Metric theories for non-gravitational specialists 1h
        This pedagogical lecture will familiarize the non-gravitational specialist with the notions central to Einstein's theory of gravity and its generalizations: inertia, metric, and connection. The distinction between inertial mass and passive gravitational charge highlights the profound result of Galileo and establishes an observational target for gravitational models. The distinction between contravariant and covariant objects then motivates a generalization of the dot product to include a metric. The metric is treated as a mathematical implementation of physical measurement. SR inertia as parallel propagation is treated carefully, revealing the familiar 4-acceleration and an additional term containing the connection. Galileo's result follows at once from the interpretation of gravitational force as inertial motion. Finally, Einstein's equation is motivated as a formal generalization of Poisson's equation, and the usual Lagrangian formalism is reviewed.
        Speaker: Kevin Croker (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
    • 10:00 AM 10:15 AM
      Coffee & Tea 15m
    • 1:00 PM 2:00 PM
      Lunch 1h
    • 2:00 PM 4:00 PM
      Outreach Preparation 2h
    • 4:30 PM 7:30 PM
      Session VI: Technical Lectures
      Convener: Mr Christopher Jackson (University of Oregon)
      • 4:30 PM
        Using the Born Rule as a Parallel Transport Equation to Detect Gauge-Invariant Correlations 1h
        The Born Rule is basically the ``step 1’’ of a quantum theory. It explains how distributions of quantum data are to be interpreted from the concepts of state and observable. In most applications, a theory for the mechanics and dynamics of the states/observables is made and the Born rule converts them into predictions for quantum event rates. However, the current situation in many labs is that quantum data is being collected but the states and observables behind them fluctuate terribly. So we ask the question: how can one even interpret and analyze quantum data without being able to fix the states and observables at play? I show that you can actually detect state-observable correlations by a discrete analogue to the parallel transport of a tangent vector on a manifold.
        Speaker: Mr Christopher Jackson (University of Oregon)
      • 6:00 PM
        Belle II, the PXD and the ONSEN data reduction system 1h
        The upcoming Belle II experiment in Tsukuba, Japan, will try to exceed the limitations of its predecessor experiment Belle in measurements of CP-violation and rare decays. The KEKB collider, which provides the electron and positron beams for Belle II, was upgraded to SuperKEKB in 2016. The new collider uses a so-called nano-beam scheme providing very focused beams at the interaction point (IP), leading to a higher luminosity of up to 8x10^35 cm^-2 s^-1, 40 times higher than the one of Belle. In addition, a whole new inner detector was developed for the Belle II experiment. In order to really precisely meassure CP-violation, one needs to resolve the decay vertices of B-mesons to a high accuracy. This was performed at Belle with the silicon strip detector (SVD), in case of Belle II a new vertex detector, the Pixel detector (PXD), will be installed for the first time, with about a factor 2 improved vertex resolution compared to Belle. Since the innermost PXD layer is located $12mm$ around the IP, the amount of accumulated data by an estimated trigger rate of 30kHz and 3% occupancy would be approximately 20GB/s which can not be written to disk completely. In order to reduce the data and only keeping physicaly interesting events, a complex readout system for the PXD was developed. The Giessen contribution to this DAQ-chain is the so called ONSEN (ONline SElection Nodes)-system based on FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and ATCA (Advanced Telecommunications Architecture) technology. It performs online reduction according to Region of Interest (ROI) selection on the datastream which is then stored on disk. This talk will shortly explain the motivation, the technical implementation and results of a combined SVD PXD prototype test beam at DESY in April 2016.
        Speaker: Mr Klemens Lautenbach (PhD Student)
    • 5:30 PM 5:45 PM
      Coffee & Tea 15m
    • 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
      Dinner 1h 30m
    • 8:00 AM 9:00 AM
      Breakfast 1h
    • 9:00 AM 10:30 AM
      Session VII: Technical Lectures
      Convener: Mr Nelson Darkwah Oppong (JILA/University of Colorado at Boulder)
      • 9:00 AM
        Project 8: Towards measuring the neutrino mass using CRES 1h
        The Project 8 collaboration was formed with the aim to measure the absolute neutrino mass scale by investigating the endpoint of the tritium beta decay spectrum using a frequency based method. For this purpose the collaboration has recently established Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy (CRES) as a new mean to determine the energy of relativistic electrons. Although the concept of cyclotron radiation has been well known for more than a century, due to the very low emitted power, it has never been observed directly for single electrons. By trapping electrons from krypton decay in a magnetic field and increasing the achievable integration time, the detection of single electron cyclotron radiation and the measurement of the corresponding cyclotron frequency has successfully been proven. The proof of principle phase prototype design and results are presented in this contribution. Furthermore an outlook on the current and future development steps on the path to a large scale tritium decay experiment is given.
        Speaker: Ms Christine Claessens (JGU Mainz)
    • 11:00 AM 12:30 PM
      Outreach Preparation 1h 30m
    • 1:00 PM 4:00 PM
      Setup and Lunch in Camprodon 3h
    • 4:00 PM 6:00 PM
      Community Outreach Event 2h City meeting chamber (Camprodon, Spain)

      City meeting chamber

      Camprodon, Spain

      Posters / Visualizations / Demos
      Speakers: Brandon Wilson (Waseda University), Mr Christopher Jackson (University of Oregon), Mr Cody Kala (Stanford University), Glenn Jocher (Ultralytics LLC), Kevin Croker (University of Hawai'i at Manoa), Mr Klemens Lautenbach (PhD Student), Kurtis Nishimura (Ultralytics), Mr Nelson Darkwah Oppong (JILA/University of Colorado at Boulder), Mr Ryo Matsuda (Kavli IPMU), Taisiya Mineeva (Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María)
    • 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
      Dinner 1h 30m
    • 8:00 AM 9:00 AM
      Breakfast 1h
    • 9:00 AM 12:00 PM
      Session VIII: Technical Lectures
      Convener: Kevin Croker (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
      • 9:00 AM
        A Smolin-like branching cosmology from multiscalar-tensor theory 1h
        We implement a Smolin-like branching cosmology through a directed, acyclic, graph of N metrics, conformally related to their graph predecessors with N-1 scalar fields. Our action is indistinguishable from N decoupled statements of General Relativity, if one varies with respect to metric degrees of freedom. Varying with respect to the N-1 scalar fields gives a multiscalar-tensor model which naturally features collisionless and truly Dark Matter. Following an argument of Chapline and Laughlin, branching is accomplished with the emergence of an order parameter during a phase transition: we bootstrap a suitably defined N+1 scalar field model with initial data from an N field model during a gravitational collapse scenario. We expand the model perturbatively in powers of graph distance, and investigate the nearest-neighbor approximation. We discuss the utility of the model in resolving open cosmological problems.
        Speaker: Kevin Croker (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
      • 10:30 AM
        Highly precise and accurate atomic clocks - The strontium optical lattice clock 1h
        This talk will cover the strontium optical lattice clock at JILA, which is currently the most precise clock in the world. Basic atomic properties of strontium which are used for the clock operation are explained. Further, optical lattices and how they are used for high-precision spectroscopy are discussed. Additionally the latest advances in the next-generation strontium optical lattice clock at JILA are presented. In this new experiment, we use a degenerate Fermi gas in a 3D optical lattice to enhance clock performance by resolving atomic interactions.
        Speaker: Mr Nelson Darkwah Oppong (JILA)
    • 10:00 AM 10:15 AM
      Coffee & Tea 15m
    • 1:00 PM 2:00 PM
      Lunch 1h
    • 2:30 PM 5:30 PM
      Nature Excursion 3h

      (Weather permitting)

    • 6:00 PM 6:30 PM
      Closing Ceremony 30m
      Speaker: Kevin Croker (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
    • 7:30 PM 9:00 PM
      Dinner 1h 30m