Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Coherent Captain Mills: The Search For Sterile Neutrinos, Ashley Elliott, Jeramy Gordon, Jonah Greenwood, Rachel Lake, Ryder Moreno, Emily Strawn, Kate Walker

Discovery Day - Prescott

The observation of neutrino oscillations confirms that the active neutrinos (νe, νμ, ντ) are comprised of three mass eigenstates with Δm2 values between 10-3 to 10-5 eV2 . However, a persistent phenomenon has been observed at LSND, MiniBooNE and other shortbaseline experiments (SBE) where Δm2 ~ 1eV2 and is not compatible with the current mixing between mass eigenstates. However, a 4th neutrino, a sterile neutrino (νs) that doesn’t participate in weak interactions could explain the phenomena observed as SBE’s. An experiment has been constructed at TA-53 at Los Alamos National Laboratory to investigate this large Δm2 ~ 1eV2 and determine …

293— Moly - Monitoring Oxygen Levels In Ntof Scintillators Using Cosmic Ray Muons, Sean King, Matthew Signor

GREAT Day Posters

High Energy Density Physics and Inertial Confinement Fusion facilities employ nTOF methods to measure neutron energies. Laser induced fusion facilities use the beam pulse as a start signal and Xylene scintillators as the stop signal to obtain the time of flight. To improve timing performance, the scintillator liquid is quenched with oxygen reducing the light production. However, oxygen reacts with the scintillator liquid causing the detector photo flash decay time to increase that reduces the energy resolution of the detector. An in-situ monitoring system which uses cosmic ray muons to determine the oxygen concentration, is being developed at SUNY Geneseo. …

Nonthermal Dark Matter From Early Matter Domination, Jacek Ksawery Osinski

Shared Knowledge Conference

Dark matter (DM) production in the early universe traditionally assumes a standard thermal history where the universe is in a radiation-dominated phase after the end of inflation until matter-radiation equality. However, the presence of additional scalar fields (which is a generic prediction of explicit string constructions) can lead to an epoch of early matter domination (EMD) that ends before the onset of big bang nucleosynthesis. Such an EMD phase has important cosmological consequences and renders thermal production of DM irrelevant. We present three scenarios for DM production involving an era of EMD: evaporation of primordial black holes into DM, DM …

Steady-State Method To Measure The In-Plane Thermal Conductivity Of Thin Sheet Materials, Evgeny Pakhomenko, Andrew James Wildridge, Abraham Mathew Koshy, Souvik Das, Andreas Jung

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

A new generation of silicon pixel detectors is required to cope with the unprecedented luminosities at the high-luminosity phase of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) in 2025. The HL-LHC provides a high radiation, high interaction rate environment for the innermost detector region of the CMS detector. This can lead to an uncontrolled increase in temperature of the detector that can destroy the silicon pixels. Moreover, too high operating temperature can add noise to the data obtained from the detector and can slow the read out cheap down. Therefore, the Phase II upgrade to the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment requires …

Primordial Black Hole Atoms, David Zwick, Tyler Hanover, Brian Nepper

STEM Student Research Symposium Posters

Primordial black holes are thought to have been formed at the early stages of the universe in the presence of non-homogeneous density distributions of dark matter. We are working under the assumption that dark matter consists of elementary low mass particles, specifically, spin 1/2 fermions. We further assume that dark matter is electrically neutral, thus its main interaction is gravitational. We investigate dark matter spin 1/2 fermions in orbit around a black hole atom and consider mass ranges for which the quantum description is appropriate. Solutions to the Dirac equation are utilized to describe the radial mass distribution of primordial …

Thermomechanical Properties Of Aluminium Heaters To Test The Compact Muon Solenoid Cooling System For Phase Two Upgrade, Sandra Jimena González, Timothy Matthew Jones

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The main objectives of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider are precision studies of the Standard Model of Particle Physics and the discovery of physics beyond it. To meet that, it is essential for the CMS detector to function at the highest efficiency for detecting subatomic particles within various technical constraints. In particular, the readout chips of the Pixel Tracker sub-detector produce significant heat and must be kept at -10 °C to ensure optimal performance and reduce cumulative damage in the high radiation environment. Thus, it is necessary to design a cooling system to extract …

Machine Learning In Xenon1t Analysis, Dillon A. Davis, Rafael F. Lang, Darryl P. Masson

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In process of analyzing large amounts of quantitative data, it can be quite time consuming and challenging to uncover populations of interest contained amongst the background data. Therefore, the ability to partially automate the process while gaining additional insight into the interdependencies of key parameters via machine learning seems quite appealing. As of now, the primary means of reviewing the data is by manually plotting data in different parameter spaces to recognize key features, which is slow and error prone. In this experiment, many well-known machine learning algorithms were applied to a dataset to attempt to semi-automatically identify known populations, …

Searching For The Origins Of Matter, Joshua L. Barrow

Andrews Research Conference

The big bang and inflation are experimentally confirmed by multitudes of astronomical observations, yet theoretical tension still exists upon a very important question: why is there something rather than nothing? In other words, why are there unequal amounts of matter and antimatter? Why did a supposedly initially symmetric state not annihilate perfectly?

The breaking of this symmetry has allowed for all of material existence--also known as baryogenesis, the prevalence of matter over antimatter--and yields the theoretical possibility of direct detection by observation of baryon number violating mechanisms, which have previously never been observed.

One such plausible mechanism can be found …

Data Collection And Analysis At The Atlas Detector, Savannah Thais

Yale Day of Data

No abstract provided.

Studies Of Charge Collection In Diamond-Based Particle Detectors At The Lhc, Jared Smith

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

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Session E-4: What's Up With The Higgs Boson? Teaching Particle Physics In High School, Peter Dong

Professional Learning Day

Best-selling books, popular PBS specials, and multi-billion-dollar machines all attest to the fascination with particle physics - including many teenagers. Physics and physical science classes can capitalize on this interest by talking about high-profile results, such as last summer's Higgs Boson Discovery. This session will answer some basic questions about contemporary particle physics and suggest some ideas for lessons and projects in particle physics.