Research Group: PPRC
Discuss with supervisor and/or admissions tutor
NOvA is an experiment based in the US that aims to measure neutrino and antineutrino oscillations to better understand the origin of the universe. To measure neutrino oscillations, we need to learn and understand how neutrinos interact. In the past few years we have learnt that a single neutrino can interact with two nucleons (two protons, a proton and a neutron, or two neutrons) simultaneously. These types of interactions form roughly 20% of the interactions seen in the NOvA detectors, but are currently poorly understood. The project is to develop a measurement of these interactions with neutrinos and antineutrinos, analyse the kinematics of the outgoing particles comparing them to currently available theoretical models. This new measurement has the opportunity to provide vital data to the neutrino community, and help disentangle effects in past neutrino oscillation measurements.
The student is encouraged to spend one year at Fermilab, near Chicago, Illinois, during the course of their PhD. Some knowledge of C++ and statistics is desirable.
SPCS Academics: Linda Cremonesi