Séminaire: The Search for Theta_13 with Double Chooz

par Dr Jaime DAWSON (APC - Paris)

vendredi 25 mars 2011, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Paris

Amphi Recherche (Dept Phys.)

Neutrino oscillation has been clearly established via the study of solar, atmospheric, reactor and beam neutrinos. Combination of these results requires the existence of (at least) three-neutrino mixing. Great progress has been made in measuring the mixing angles (theta_12, theta_23) and the two mass squared differences. However, the mixing angle theta_13, the mass hierarchy and the delta_cp phase are still currently unknown. Whilst a measurement of theta_13 would complete the knowledge of the mixing angles, even a more stringent upper limit would be useful since the size of theta_13 has a great bearing on the possibility to observe CP violation in the leptonic sector with upcoming neutrino experiments. The Double Chooz experiment is the first of the next wave of reactor experiments searching for a non-vanishing value of the mixing angle theta_13. Operation of the far detector began in December. I will present the experimental concept, detector design and current status. I will discuss the most pertinent backgrounds, and the expected sensitivity.