- Seminars-iihe - listserv.vub.be

IIHE Seminar Feb 23: Prof. Giovanni De Lellis (The Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC)
by Steven Lowette 23 Feb '24

23 Feb '24

Dear all, On Feb 23 we will have an IIHE seminar from Prof. Giovanni de Lellis: "The new era of collider neutrinos: the Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC" at 14h00 in the Sacton seminar room (G.1.03) (note the unusual time to accommodate travel constraints) Abstract and short bio are below; the event's agenda can be found here: https://indico.iihe.ac.be/event/1916/ Kind regards, Steven. ----- Abstract: SND@LHC is a compact and stand-alone experiment to perform measurements with neutrinos produced at the LHC in a hitherto unexplored pseudo-rapidity region of 7.2 < 𝜂 < 8.4, complementary to all the other experiments at the LHC. The experiment is located 480 m downstream of IP1 and the detector is composed of a hybrid system based on an 800 kg target mass of tungsten plates, interleaved with emulsion and electronic trackers, followed downstream by a calorimeter and a muon system. The configuration allows efficiently distinguishing between all three neutrino flavours, opening a unique opportunity to probe physics of heavy flavour production at the LHC in the region that is not accessible to ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. This region is of particular interest for future circular colliders and for predictions of very high-energy atmospheric neutrinos. The detector concept is also well suited to searching for Feebly Interacting Particles via signatures of scattering in the detector target. The first phase aims at operating the detector throughout LHC Run 3. The experiment has taken data since 2022 and has recently reported the first observation of collider neutrinos. We shall review the first experimental results and the plans for the upgrade to operate at the high-luminosity LHC. A new era of collider neutrino physics has just started. Short Bio: Giovanni De Lellis was born in Naples, Italy, in 1973. He graduated in Physics summa cum laude in 1996 and in piano in 1997. He got his Ph.D. in Physics in 2000 with a thesis on the “First observation of the associated charm production in neutrino interactions”, where he firstly observed this process in the data collected by the CHORUS experiment at CERN. He is Full Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Naples. After studying the charm production in neutrino interactions in CHORUS, he moved to the OPERA experiment, designed to observe muon to tau neutrino oscillations, for the first time in appearance mode with a neutrino beam at CERN and the detector located in Gran Sasso (Italy). In OPERA he acted as coordinator of the emulsion scanning laboratories from 2008 till 2012, before being appointed Spokesperson. He served this role from 2012 until the end of the experimental program in 2019. In 2015 OPERA reported the observation of tau neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam with a significance above 5s, while in 2018 final results were given with more than 6s significance and with the estimate of the oscillation parameters with an improved accuracy. In 2018 he patented with members of his group in Naples a method to achieve nanometric accuracy with optical microscopy, getting the unprecedented resolution of 60 nm. In 2018, he did some feasibility studies to build a detector and study neutrinos for the first time produced by a collider, the LHC. These studies laid the foundations of the "Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC” experiment, with 180 scientists in 13 Countries and CERN. In 2020 he was elected as the first Spokesperson of the experiment. -- Steven Lowette https://cern.ch/lowette/

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IIHE seminar Dec 13: Prof. Matthew Citron (Searching for millicharged signatures of the dark sector)
by Steven Lowette 13 Dec '23

13 Dec '23

Dear all, Coupled to the milliQan workshop that will run next week in the lab Mon-Wed, we will have an invited seminar from Prof. Matthew Citron: "Searching for millicharged signatures of the dark sector" on Wed Dec 13 at 14h30 in the Neutrino room (G.0.20). *Note the unusual day and location!* Abstract and short bio are below; the event's agenda can be found here: https://indico.iihe.ac.be/event/1897/ Kind regards, Steven. ----- Abstract: Hidden sector models of dark matter are the focus of a large number of searches at the LHC and beyond. An underexplored signature of such theories is the production of particles with a small fractional electric charge. These "millicharged particles" may be produced copiously at facilities such as the LHC. However, due to their very small energy depositions, general purpose detectors are blind to them. I will show how this blind spot can be closed through the use of dedicated detectors that consist of several layers of long scintillator bars, paired with high-gain, low-noise photomultiplier tubes. In this talk I will cover results from the milliQan demonstrator, which ran very successfully at the LHC, the ongoing Run 3 milliQan experiment, as well as plans for the forward FORMOSA detector for the HL-LHC. Finally, I will discuss complementary experiments at high intensity facilities. Bio: Dr Matthew Citron has been an Assistant Professor in the Physics Department at UC Davis since 2023. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College London where he worked on searches for supersymmetry with the CMS detector at the LHC. He then took a Postdoc appointment at UC Santa Barbara where he worked on searches for long-lived signatures of new physics. At UC Davis his research focusses on searches for exotic signatures of dark sectors using both the general purpose CMS detector as well as constructing and operating dedicated detectors at the LHC and beyond. -- Steven Lowette https://cern.ch/lowette/ -- Prof. Steven Lowette Vrije Universiteit Brussel https://cern.ch/lowette/

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IIHE seminar Dec 8: Prof. Vitor de Souza (The Cherenkov Telescope Array)
by Steven Lowette 08 Dec '23

08 Dec '23

Dear all, On Dec 8 we will have a seminar from Prof. Vitor de Souza: "The Cherenkov Telescope Array" at 14h30 in the Sacton seminar room (G.1.03) Abstract and short bio are below; the event's agenda can be found here: https://indico.iihe.ac.be/event/1896/ Kind regards, Steven. ----- Abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory is the next generation ground-based telescope array to study very-high-energy electromagnetic radiation from the Universe. CTA will open a new era in this energy domain with its superior performance with respect to the current generation. In this talk, I will present the most important aspects of the very wide science case of CTA and I'll review fundamentals of the imaging Cherenkov approach. The prospects for the possible discoveries will be presented, with focus on the legacy surveys and on the fundamental astrophysics and physics to be targeted by the CTA Observatory. Our view of the very-high-energy sky is about to change dramatically, CTA will open a new era in our understanding of the highest energetic phenomena in the Universe and in this talk I will discuss some of the expected scientific output. Short Bio: Prof. de Souza earned his Bachelor in Physics in 1997, Master's in 2000 and PhD in 2004 at the University of Campinas, Brazil. He was a visiting researcher during his graduate studies at the University of Leeds, Great Britain and the University of Adelaide, Australia. He then was a post-doc at the Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics at the University of São Paulo, Brazil from 2004 until 2007. He held a researcher position at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany during 2007 and 2008 and is Professor in Astroparticle Physics at the University of São Paulo since 2008. He is member of the Pierre Auger Observatory and the CTA Observatory, chair of the Consortium Board of CTA, member of the Director Board of Latin-America Council for Physics, coordinator of the Astronomy Panel of FAPESP, and co-chair of the Department of Physics and Interdisciplinary Science of IFSC/USP. -- Steven Lowette https://cern.ch/lowette/

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IIHE seminar: Vincent Pilgrims (galactic magnetic fields)
by Steven Lowette 24 Nov '23

24 Nov '23

Dear all, Friday this week, we will have a seminar from our own Vincent Pilgrims: "The needs and means of Galactic magnetic field tomography" The event's agenda can be found here: https://indico.iihe.ac.be/event/1895/ Note the time: 14h30. Location: Sacton seminar room (G.1.03) See you there! Steven. -- Steven Lowette https://cern.ch/lowette/

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PhD defence of Tomas Kello on Thu 16/11 - 16:00
by FAVART Laurent 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Dear colleagues, Tomas Kello will defend his PhD entitled "Constraining anomalous Higgs boson couplings using the CMS detector at the Large Hadron Collider” on Thu 16/11 at 16:00 in room G.V.008 at the Groenenborger Campus [1] According to his co-PhD convention between ULB and UA the public defence is also considered as a IIHE seminar. If you are not able to join in person, the defence can be followed from remote on zoom [2]. Best regards, Laurent Favart and Pierre Van Mechelen [1] For a map locating the V building see here : https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/overuantwerpen/campussen/campus-groenenborger/ [2] https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZGY5ZjVlODQtY2RjMi00…

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IIHE invited seminar: 28th of April, prof. Adriano di Giovanni (GSSI) "A CubeSat spacecraft for the detection of Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes"
by MARIS Ioana Codrina 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

Invited Seminars <https://indico.iihe.ac.be/category/6/> IIHE invited seminar: The era of Low cost - High Risk space missions: a CubeSat spacecraft for the detection of Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes //// byProf.Adriano Di Giovanni(GSSI) //Friday 28 Apr 2023, 15:00→16:30Europe/Brussels //G/0-G.0.20 - Neutrino Room (Building G) Description Serendipitously discovered by the BATSE mission in the nineties, Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) represent the most intense and energetic natural emission of gamma rays from our planet. TGFs consist of sub-millisecond bursts of gamma rays (energy up to one hundred MeV) generated during powerful thunderstorms by lightenings and are in general companions of several other counterparts (electron beams, neutrons, radio waves). The ideal observatory for TGF is therefore a fast detector, possibly with spectral abilities and orbiting around Earth in LEO (Low Earth Orbit). To date, the benchmark observatory is ASIM, an instrument flying onboard the International Space Station (ISS), however TGF science is being addressed by new instruments, few of them orbiting in free flight around Earth: among these, LIGHT-1, a 3U Cubesat mission launched in December 21st, 2021 and deployed from the ISS on February 3rd, 2022. The LIGHT-1 payload consists of two similar instruments conceived to effectively detect TGFs at few hundred nanoseconds timescale. The detection unit is composed of a scintillating crystal organised in four optically independent channels, read out by as many photosensors. The detection unit is surrounded by a segmented plastic scintillator layer that acts as an anti coincidence VETO for charged particles. The customised electronics embeds power supplies and detector readout, signal processing, detector controls and act as interface with the bus of the spacecraft. LIGHT-1 makes the use of two different scintillating crystals, namely low background Cerium Bromide and Lanthanum Bromo Chloride, and two different photo sensing technologies based on PhotoMultiplier Tubes (R11265-200 manufactured by Hamamatsu) and Silicon Photomultipliers (ASD-NUV1C-P manufactured by Advansid and S13361-6050AE-04 manufactured by Hamamatsu). Payload performance and detailed description will be provided, along the results of commissioning and preliminary flight data. Organised by Ioana Maris and Steven Lowette

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IIHE invited seminar: Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays: an origin story,by Dr James Matthews, 31st of March
by MARIS Ioana Codrina 27 Mar '23

27 Mar '23

Invited Seminars <https://indico.iihe.ac.be/category/6/> IIHE invited seminar: Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays: an origin story //// byDrJames Matthews(University of Oxford) //Friday 31 Mar 2023, 15:00→16:30Europe/Brussels Description Understanding how ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) reach energies in excess of 1e20 eV stretches particle acceleration physics to its very limits. In this talk, I will discuss how such energies can be reached, using general arguments that can often be derived on the back of an envelope. I will review possible particle acceleration mechanisms, with special attention paid to shock acceleration. Informed by the arguments derived in the talk, and with insights from Galactic CR acceleration in supernova remnants, I will then discuss which classes of astrophysical sources might be UHECR sources, including my own (biased) perspective; generally, I favour radio galaxies, GRB afterglows and other sources which are not too compact and dissipate prodigious amounts of energy on large scales. Aided by hydrodynamic simulations, I will show that shocks in the backflows in radio galaxies are good accelerators of UHECRs, then present simulations in which the jet flickers and explore the impact on particle acceleration. I will explore a scenario in which a significant fraction of UHECRs originate from local radio galaxies like Centaurus A and Fornax A, arguing that they can explain the observed UHECR anisotropies. Finally, I will highlight the importance of variability in these potential UHECR sources, and explore the intiguing possibility that the UHECR arrival directions are partly a result of "UHECR echoes" or "reverberation" from magnetic structures in the local Universe. *About the speaker:*Dr. Matthews got his PhD in 2016 from the University of Southampton supervised by Christian Knigge, where he worked on radiative transfer modelling of accretion disc winds. He then moved to Oxford in 2016 for a postdoctoral position working on ultrahigh energy cosmic ray origins before taking up a Herchel Smith Fellowship in Cambridge from 2019-2022. He has recently returned to the Oxford astrophysics department as a Royal Society University Research Fellow, and his research lies at the intersection of theoretical and observational astrophysics, focusing mostly on outflows from accretion discs, astrophysical jets, particle acceleration and axion-like particles. Organised by Ioana Maris and Steven Lowette

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after-seminar beer, 17:00 in CoHop
by MARIS Ioana Codrina 24 Mar '23

24 Mar '23

Dear all, If you would like to join the seminar speaker for discussion and a beer after the seminar, you can do that at 17:00 in CoHop. https://cohop.be/en/ All the best, Ioana and Steven

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IIHE invited seminar: Relativistic Jets from Stellar Mass Black Holes in our galaxy by Prof. Rob Fender, 24th March
by MARIS Ioana Codrina 23 Mar '23

23 Mar '23

Invited Seminars<https://indico.iihe.ac.be/category/6/> IIHE invited seminar: Relativistic Jets from Stellar Mass Black Holes in our galaxy by Prof. Rob Fender (University of Oxford) Friday 24 Mar 2023, 15:00 → 16:30 Europe/Brussels G/0-G.0.20 - Neutrino Room (Building G) Description Astrophysical black holes are the purest manifestations of general relativity, and mark the frontier of our understanding of physics. When accreting gas into their gravitational potential, they can become the most luminous objects in the universe. The most poorly understood aspect of this accretion process is the formation of extremely powerful, highly collimated 'jets' which carry away a large fraction of the liberated gravitational potential energy at relativistic speeds. The most spectacular examples of this process are the supermassive black holes in the centres of giant elliptical galaxies, including M87, the site of the first direct image of a black hole event horizon. However, these supermassive black hole jets are almost frozen in time, and studying how they propagate from the event horizon to their ultimate termination in cluster gas many millions of years later, and how the liberated energy is deposited in the ambient medium, is simply impossible on humanly-accessible timescales. However, stellar mass black holes, the remnants of the most massive stars which lived fast and died young, pervade space, with an estimated 100 million in our galaxy alone. Some of these stellar mass black holes accrete at a high rate from orbiting binary companion stars, and mimic the relativistic accretion and jet formation observed in supermassive systems like M87. In this talk I will explore how rich new sets of observational data have allowed us to measure the state of the accretion flow at the moment of jet launch, and track the relativistically ejected material all the way to its termination in the interstellar medium on a timescale of one or two years. For the first time we are able to edge towards precise calorimetry of these ejections and connect this to the energy balance at the event horizon at the moment of launch. About the speaker: https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/fender Organised by Ioana Maris and Steven Lowette

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IHE invited seminar: Friday 17th February, Prof. Freya Bleckman "The CMS physics communication as a lab for science communication"
by MARIS Ioana Codrina 12 Feb '23

12 Feb '23

Invited Seminars <https://indico.iihe.ac.be/category/6/> IIHE invited seminar: The CMS physics communication as a lab for science communication. //// byProf.Freya Blekman(DESY and University of Hamburg) //Friday 17 Feb 2023, 15:00→16:30Europe/Brussels //G/0-G.0.20 - Neutrino Room (Building G) Description Abstract: This colloquium is about (why and) how to communicate your work as a scientist, something that is important for all physicists independent of their career stage. Some examples on strategies and data-driven interpretation of successful science communication by the CMS communication through the physics briefings will be used to highlight the different aspects. Finally, some tips & tricks on how to get started with science communication will be discussed. While the speaker obviously comes from an LHC physics background, the talk is intended for a general physics audience. Brief Bio Freya Blekman works on breaking the standard model at the LHC and with future colliders and was until recently coordinating the physics communication activities for the over 4000 physicists in one of the large LHC collaborations, the Compact Muon Solenoid. Freya Blekman has been communicating science since she was a bachelor student. She started in 2010 as a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and since October 2021 is a lead researcher at DESY (the German national particle physics laboratory) with a professorship at the University of Hamburg. Blekman is also a visiting professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Oxford. Organised by Ioana Maris and Steven Lowette

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