Novel Technologies for Neutrino and Dark MatterDetection

Abstract

Neutrinos have long been considered a powerful tool for exploring physics beyond the standard model, and have been recognized as having applications in nuclear reactor monitoring and non-proliferation efforts. In particular, there is interest on the part of both the physics and nuclear security communities in a discrete neutrino detector; however, the experimental difficulties associated with detecting neutrinos in a high background environment have hampered past efforts, forcing experiments underground. I discuss my work on a variety of novel neutrino technologies meant to overcome such difficulties. These include the design of a compact optical time projection chamber (TPC) capable of reconstructing inverse beta decays, work on the CHANDLER detector technology systems, the first measurement of nuclear quenching effects in Cerium Bromide scintillator, measurements of nuclear quenching in a gaseous dark matter detector, and a world leading measurement of nuclear quenching in liquid Xenon. Many of these technologies, either singly or in combination, may meet the needs of the nuclear security and dark matter communities and provide a mechanism to reduce backgrounds in fundamental neutrino physics searches.