Searching for the Creation of Matter (Without Antimatter!) with MAJORANA and LEGEND

by Prof. Jason Detwiler (University of Washington)

Monday 18 Sept 2023, 10:00 → 12:00 Asia/Shanghai

Tsung-Dao Lee Institute/N6F-N600 - Lecture Room (Tsung-Dao Lee Institute)

Abstract:

This talk will report on the substantial progress made over the last ~2 decades on both experimental and theoretical fronts in the global enterprise to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay, a hypothetical ultra-rare nuclear process in which matter (two new electrons) is created without any antimatter, as is predicted generically by many Standard Model extensions. This progress has culminated in the mounting of experiments like MAJORANA and LEGEND with the capability of identifying a single decaying nucleus in the midst of tens to hundreds of kg of detector material or more, reaching half-life sensitivities on the order of 10^18 times the age of the universe. Such sensitivity gives very exciting prospects for discovery in the coming round of experimental searches.

Biography

I grew up in Seattle but did my undergraduate studies at Occidental College where I worked on high-magnetic field condensed matter physics with George Schmiedeshoff, and with Alex Lacerda, then at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I received my Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2005 working with Giorgio Gratta on the KamLAND experiment, focusing on reactor antineutrino oscillation. My thesis, Measurement of Neutrino Oscillation with KamLAND represented the first observation of spectral distortion in a reactor antineutrino spectrum. KamLAND was one of the experiments awarded the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the fundamental discovery and exploration of neutrino oscillation.

I did my postdoctoral work at CENPA with John Wilkerson, where I became involved in the Majorana neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment as well as the NCD phase of the SNO solar neutrino oscillation experiment (SNO was also awarded a 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physcis, and the spokesperson, Art MacDonald, received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics). I continued this work on Majorana, SNO, and KamLAND as a Seaborg Fellow and then as a Project Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory working with Kevin Lesko, Alan Poon, and Stuart Freedman from 2007 to 2012. I joined the University of Washington Department of Physics faculty in 2012. I'm currently a Co-Spokesperson of Majorana, and a Steering Committee Member and Analysis Co-Coordinator on LEGEND. I'm also on the COHERENT and KamLAND/KamLAND-Zen experiments.

I'm a member of the APS DNP, DPF, and DAP divisions, and the Northwest section. I became an APS Fellow in 2020. I've been affiliated with the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (U. Tokyo) since 2014. I'm also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Pi Sigma honor societies.