Description:

Abstract: Why is the universe dominated by matter, and not antimatter? Neutrinos,
with their changing flavors and tiny masses, could provide an answer. If the
neutrino is its own antiparticle, it would reveal the origin of the neutrino’s
mass, demonstrate that lepton number is not a conserved symmetry of nature,
and provide a path to leptogenesis in the early universe. To discover whether
this is the case, we must search for neutrinoless double-beta decay.
Detecting this extremely rare process requires us to build very large lowbackground experiments. LEGEND, a phased search in 76Ge, builds on the
success of the Majorana Demonstrator to explore lifetimes of up to 1028
years. Going beyond that will require new techniques for kiloton-scale detectors,
which we’re developing in NuDot, a proof-of-concept liquid scintillator experiment. I’ll discuss the progress we’ve already made in these measurements, the
near-term prospects for ton-scale germanium experiments, and the technologies
we’re developing for future efforts.

Speaker: Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Host: Mayda Velasco