Overcoming Neutrino Interaction Mis-modeling with DUNE-PRISM

by Luke Pickering (Michigan State University)

Tuesday 17 Nov 2020, 15:00 → 16:00 Europe/London

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The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, DUNE, will have the statistical precision to conclusively determine if neutrinos and anti-neutrinos oscillate differently. If they do, neutrinos may be able to explain how an early universe composed of equal parts matter and anti-matter, could evolve into what we observe today, one overwhelmingly made of matter.

DUNE will measure neutrino oscillation over a 1300 km baseline between a near detector at Fermilab, Illinois and a far detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, South Dakota. DUNE is expected to begin taking data at the end of the decade.

The precision of current-generation measurements from T2K and NOνA are becoming limited by uncertainties in the modelling of neutrino-nucleus interactions. Without significant advancements in interaction modelling, DUNE's oscillation programme will be unacceptably limited by systematic uncertainties, or worse, unknowingly biased from incorrect model assumptions.

The DUNE-PRISM (Precision Reaction Independent Spectrum Measurement) technique offers a novel and powerful alternative approach to neutrino oscillation analysis that exhibits significantly less reliance on accurate interaction modelling than traditional methodologies (T2K, NOvA, MINOS). This is achieved by combining multiple near detector measurements taken with a moveable near detector at different off-neutrino-beam-axis positions, and thus in different neutrino energy spectra. This talk will present how traditional measurements that rely on interaction models can be unknowingly biased, introduce the novel DUNE-PRISM oscillation analysis and show how DUNE-PRISM will save next-generation measurements from unknown deficiencies in interaction models.

RALSeminar20201117.pdf

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