Our grad student Andrew Ziegler just gave a talk at the APS April Meeting 2022 on signal detection algorithms for Project 8 experiment, highlighting our work on developing machine learning algorithms for signal detection!
Author: Luiz de Viveiros
Penn State’s LZ group at the April APS Meeting!
The LZ dark matter experiment is having a strong participation in the APS April Meeting, with 15 talks! Penn State’s Prof. Carmen Carmona-Benitez kicked off the dark matter direct detection session with the main talk for LZ, reporting on its current status and announcing that LZ’s first science results are expected in 2022! As chair of the LZ Speaker’s Board, she was also in charge of coordinating and reviewing all the talks presented at the APS!
Our grad student Dan Kodroff followed directly with a presentation on the detector backgrounds, the main driver for dark matter sensitivity!
Tomorrow we will have grad student Andrew Ziegler giving a presentation on Project 8!
Kicking off the #darkmatter direct detection session at the #apsapril meeting today is LZ’s Carmen Carmona-Benitez! @APSphysics pic.twitter.com/3Pa0oKIKdv
— LZ Dark Matter (@lzdarkmatter) April 9, 2022
Dan Kodroff presents on backgrounds to the LZ #darkmatter search. Backgrounds are things we expect to see – they consist of expected particle interactions, such as beta decays of isotopes of lead! @APSMeetings pic.twitter.com/TIXFLZOBQE
— LZ Dark Matter (@lzdarkmatter) April 9, 2022
Next Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for dark matter and neutrinos
The Penn State group joins forces with the rest of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration and XENON/DARWIN to work together on the next generation (G3) detector for dark matter and neutrinos!
The whitepaper is now on arXiv: arxiv:2203.02309
We are so excited to join with @XENONexperiment and @DarwinObserv in a global effort to take the search for dark matter to the next level! https://t.co/MzUHp7nTyz
— LZ Dark Matter (@lzdarkmatter) July 20, 2021
Penn State at LZ meeting
Dan and David at the LZ meeting happening in person!
Seeing triple? Great discussions happening this week on the US west coast, east coast and in the UK at our hybrid remote/in-person collaboration meeting! pic.twitter.com/W0G6Qvkggh
— LZ Dark Matter (@lzdarkmatter) March 8, 2022
Ethan wins 3rd place in poster competition
Our undergraduate student, Ethan Ritchey, has won 3rd place in the Eberly College of Science undergraduate poster exhibition here at Penn State! He presented a poster on his research on modeling neutron signals in a novel detector design that we are developing, the Snowball Chamber, which uses supercooled water to detect particle interactions.
Poster: “Development of the Snowball Chamber into a Novel Particle Detector.”
https://www.psu.edu/news/academics/story/eberly-colleges-undergraduate-research-exhibition-success/
Carmen on “Astronomy on Tap”
Carmen just presented a short talk about dark matter, and about using detectors deep underground to search for it! The talk was part of the “Astronomy on Tap” talk series, and is available on YouTube!
Carmen receives the Sloan Fellowship 2021 Award
Carmen has been awarded the 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in recognition of her research accomplishments! Congratulations!
About the Sloan Fellowship, from the Penn State News website: ‘Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships honor extraordinary researchers whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of scientific leaders. “A Sloan Research Fellow is a rising star, plain and simple” said Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “To receive a fellowship is to be told by the scientific community that your achievements as a young scholar are already driving the research frontier.” […] The fellowships are awarded in close coordination with the scientific community. Candidates must be nominated by their fellow scientists and winners are selected by independent panels of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s research accomplishments, creativity, and potential. A Sloan Research Fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards available to young researchers.‘
The LZ Outer Detector
The Outer Detector’s purpose is to snag neutrons on their way in/out of LZ. 10 acrylic vessels fit together like puzzle pieces to provide full coverage of LZ’s xenon heart. The vessels are filled with liquid scintillator loaded with gadolinium, which easily absorbs neutrons (2/4)
— LZ Dark Matter (@lzdarkmatter) February 10, 2021
so a big pulse of light is smoking gun evidence for a neutron! Our Outer Detector is highly efficient at detecting neutrons this way, allowing us to have confidence in a real #darkmatter signal – if we’re lucky enough to see one! (4/4) pic.twitter.com/fTtOjUzwSY
— LZ Dark Matter (@lzdarkmatter) February 10, 2021
SURF temporarily closed
The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), the lab where LZ is being constructed, is effectively closed due to the COVID19 pandemic.
To ensure the safety and well-being of our staff, contractors and partners, the SDSTA will temporarily transition activities at Sanford Lab to minimal essential operations only for a period of at least two weeks.
For more information, see: https://t.co/ub9ywBysVy
— SanfordLab (@SanfordLab) March 25, 2020
Research at Penn State campus halted due to pandemic
The Penn State campus is effectively closing due to pandemic.
All Penn State classes to take place remotely beginning March 16
University shares additional critical information for faculty, staff and students: https://t.co/KsRzNLTok3 pic.twitter.com/w2762fcgcj
— Penn State (@penn_state) March 11, 2020