NuSTEC School on Neutrino Nucleus Scattering Physics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL, October 18 - 26, 2014

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

One of the major intellectual achievements of the 20th century was the development of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. This model succeeded in classifying all of the elementary particles known at the time into a hierarchy of groups having similar quantum properties. The validity of this model to date was recently confirmed by the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. However, the Standard Model as it currently exists leaves open many questions about the universe, including such fundamental questions as to why the Higgs mass has the value it has and why there is no antimatter in the universe. One of the primary areas to search for answers to these and other open questions about the universe, how it came to be and why it is the way it is, is to focus on a study of the properties of neutrinos and to use what we know and can learn about neutrinos as probes of science beyond the Standard Model. Neutrinos are those elementary particles that interact with practically nothing else in the universe. They have no electric charge and were once thought to be massless. Like other elementary particles, they were believed to have an antimatter counterpart, the antineutrino. Moreover, the Standard Model predicted that there were actually three different kinds of neutrinos that were distinguishable through the different interactions that they did undergo whenever there was an interaction. This award will help fund the first Neutrino Scattering Theory Experiment Collaboration (NuSTEC) neutrino nucleus scattering school. The school will be held at Fermilab from October 18 to 26, 2014. NuSTEC is a collaboration of theorists and experimentalists working on neutrino nucleus scattering physics. Intellectual Merit: The aim of the school is to provide the necessary theoretical background on the physics of the electroweak interactions with nucleons and nuclei. The theoretical background is necessary for the preparation of the next generation neutrino physicists. An overarching goal of this school is the better understanding of neutrino−nucleus interactions for more precise oscillation measurements, based on a complementary approach using experiments, theory and simulations. The target audience consists of graduate students and post-docs in both theoretical and experimental physics. Broader Impact: The goal of the NuSTEC collaboration is to train the next generation of neutrino physicists. Precise knowledge of neutrino interactions is an absolute necessity for future measurements of the masses and mixing-mediating neutrino oscillations. To enable precision measurements in neutrino physics, the next generation neutrino physics community needs to understand and model in detail the underlying physics of the neutrino weak interaction within a nuclear environment. Thoroughness is required so that we can reliably apply the relevant model calculations across the wide energy ranges and varying nuclei necessary for our precision neutrino investigations.