Research Initiation Award: Investigation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

North Carolina Central University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities-Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) Research Initiation Awards (RIAs) provide support to STEM junior faculty at HBCUs who are starting to build a research program, as well as for mid-career faculty who may have returned to the faculty ranks after holding an administrative post or who needs to redirect and rebuild a research program. Faculty members may pursue research at their home institution, at an NSF-funded Center, at a research intensive institution or at a national laboratory. The RIA projects are expected to help further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, to improve research and teaching at his or her home institution, and to involve undergraduate students in research experiences. With support from the National Science Foundation, North Carolina Central University (NCCU) will conduct research in coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering and formalize participation in the COHERENT research collaboration whose objective is to measure this type of neutrino scattering. This scattering was predicted in 1974, but has not yet been observed. Once observed, the methods and results will have an impact on research in astrophysics. This project will provide valuable physics research experience and mentorship for several minority undergraduate students at North Carolina Central University and also during their summers at Duke University. The project will bring cutting-edge research and research techniques into the NCCU classroom. In addition, the project will help North Carolina Central University build its research capacity and enhance the educational and research experiences of their undergraduate students. The objective of this project is to participate in the deployment and data acquisition of detector systems and to perform data analysis and simulations of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CENNS) measurements and associated background studies on key nuclear targets (such as Germanium) and shielding materials (including lead). The COHERENT collaboration will take advantage of recent advances in detector technology and the availability of an intense source of pulsed neutrinos available as a byproduct of the Spallation Neutron Source at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to carry out the first CENNS investigation. The immediate COHERENT goal is to compare CENNS measurements in selected nuclei to Standard Model cross section calculations to test for neutrino non-standard interactions. In addition, the measured reaction rates have direct implications for understanding detector response and background in dark-matter experiments, and for modeling supernova processes and detection. Collaborators include Duke University faculty at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.