Neutrinos are neutral and weakly interacting subatomic particles. This makes them complicated to study, but we have detected 3 "flavours" of neutrinos, one coupled to each charged lepton (electron, muon, and tau). Following their discovery, a problem emerged in which fewer electron neutrinos were detected from the Sun than expected. Thanks in part to work by scientists on experiments in Canada (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory) and in Japan, recognized by a Nobel Prize, the resolution of this mystery is that neutrinos produced in one flavour can later be observed as another flavour. In the time since, experimental efforts across the globe have worked toward a better understanding of the phenomenon known as neutrino oscillation and tested for other unexpected signatures. While the picture has improved, there are still several key open questions to gain a full understanding of the nature of neutrinos. The upcoming generation of experiments will use improved sources and bigger and/or more sensitive detectors to give unprecedented reach. For example, the Liquid Argon (LAr) Time-Projection Chamber (TPC) is a sensitive particle detector capable of providing a fine-grained look at the products of neutrinos interacting with the argon. A suite of detectors have been studying neutrinos using this technology at a smaller scale, and the DUNE experiment will use tens of thousands of tons of argon to study neutrino oscillation, with its primary source being an accelerator-based neutrino beam. This lecture will discuss neutrinos, LAr TPC detectors, and accelerator-based (especially LAr TPC) neutrino experiments.
Dr. Bruce Howard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at York University in Toronto and holds a joint appointment at Fermilab. He has been interested in neutrinos since his undergraduate studies. Howard obtained his PhD from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, while conducting research on accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments: DUNE and NOvA. Prior to joining the faculty at York University, he held a postdoctoral position at Fermilab with a heavy emphasis on the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program detectors (primarily ICARUS but also SBND), which utilize the liquid argon time-projection chamber technology to study neutrinos at a short distance (baseline) from accelerator neutrino beam sources at Fermilab. As a faculty member at York, Howard remains focused in the liquid argon time-projection chamber experiment landscape, with an active program of research in DUNE, primarily via the “Near Detector” that will be placed near the neutrino beam, and SBN, where his current focus is on the ICARUS detector.