Yale Postdoctoral Trainees

NPA Seminar: Scott Kravitz, University of Texas at Austin, "Dark matter detection and beyond with crystal xenon"

I will present the crystalline xenon time projection chamber (TPC), a promising novel technology for next-generation dark matter searches. Initial tests have established that it maintains many of the benefits of the liquid xenon TPC while also effectively excluding radon, the dominant background in currently-running xenon dark matter experiments such as LZ. This offers the potential for greatly improved sensitivity to dark matter through a crystal xenon upgrade to an existing experiment.

NPA Seminar: Yoni Kahn, UIUC, "Dark Matter Meets Condensed Matter"

As the gravitational evidence accumulates inexorably that dark matter comprises the vast majority of the mass of the universe, the particle nature of dark matter remains a mystery. New laboratory experiments are being commissioned to probe sub-GeV dark matter, but the signatures in these detectors rely crucially on the condensed matter properties of the detector material. Similarly, detecting the couplings of axions to matter requires considering collective modes in materials.

NPA Seminar: Debora Mroczek, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, "Searching for the QCD critical point with the Beam Energy Scan program at RHIC"

One of the main goals of the Beam Energy Scan (BES) program at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) is to detect signatures of the conjectured QCD critical point. A prediction based on universality arguments suggested that non-monotonic behavior in the fourth-order baryon susceptibility (chi-4) is a critical signature. The net-proton kurtosis, as a function of beam energy, is thought to be a good experimental proxy for chi-4. This discussion became even more relevant after results from the first run of the BES program showed hints of non-monotonic behavior in the net-proton kurtosis.

NPA Seminar: Wenqing Fan, LBNL, "Studying jet substructure with energy correlators at colliders"

The internal structure (substructure) of jets produced in high-energy hadron collisions encodes rich Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) dynamics, from the interaction of quarks and gluons in the weakly coupled limit to the hadronization process in the strongly coupled limit. Studies on jet substructures have attracted interest from both the theoretical and experimental sides, together advancing our understanding of QCD. Central to the recent development of jet substructure has been the use of energy correlators, which measure statistical correlations of the energy flux within a jet.

NPA Seminar: Gerard Higgins, Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), Vienna, "Towards Quantum Tests and Dark Matter Searches with Magnetically-Levitated Superconductors"

Magnetically-levitated superconductors make an excellent platform for tests of quantum physics with large particles and for quantum sensing. The superconducting particles are highly-isolated from their surroundings, in ultrahigh vacuum, at cryogenic temperatures, within dissipationless traps. The particle motion can be coupled to superconducting quantum circuits, offering the potential for sensing the motion below the standard quantum limit, and for preparing quantum states of motion.

WIDG Seminar: Sierra Wilde, Yale, "Let There Be Light... in Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Detectors"

Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay is a powerful tool for learning more about the properties of neutrinos and the fundamental behaviors of the universe. Liquid Xenon (LXe) time projection chambers, such as EXO-200 and nEXO, are capable of doing highly sensitive searches for this decay using enriched Xe-136. Scintillation light emitted from the Xe has previously been an underutilized tool, but has great potential for analysis and event detection. Optical simulations of EXO-200 and nEXO will be used to characterize both detectors’ responses.

NPA Seminar: Romain Schotter, University of Strasbourg, " Precision measurements with multi-strange baryons at the LHC with the ALICE experiment"

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the quantum field theory describing the strong interaction. With the increasing data set at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) as well as theoretical advances, measurements of QCD observables have now reached an unprecedented level of precision, in particular in the hyperon sector.

NPA Seminar: Anna Soter, ETH Zurich, "Precision particle physics with exotic atoms and antimatter"

Exotic atoms are simple Coulomb-bound systems in which an exotic particle, such as an antiproton, muon, or pion, replaces either the nucleus or an electron within a typical atom. These unique atomic configurations serve as highly sensitive tools for probing the Standard Model (SM) at low energies, and offer precise measurements of fundamental parameters, including particle masses and magnetic moments.

NPA Seminar: Shi Qiu, Utrecht University/Nikhef, "Search for chiral magnetic effect in heavy-ion collisions with ALICE"

In high-energy heavy-ion collisions, the chiral magnetic effect (CME) is predicted to arise from the interplay of the chirality imbalance of quarks (due to QCD instantons/sphalerons) and a strong magnetic field produced in heavy ion collisions. The combined effect leads to the charge separation along the direction of the magnetic field. In this talk, I present the search for CME using the spectator-participant plane method in Pb–Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV with ALICE.

NPA Seminar: Anders Knospe, Lehigh University, "From Light to Heavy Flavor: Using Hadrons as Probes of Ion-Ion Collisions"

Ultrarelativistic ion-ion collisions enable physicists to study the strong nuclear interaction at extreme temperatures. A wide variety of probes can be used to characterize the properties of the matter produced in such collisions. In this presentation, the speaker will discuss the many ways in which hadrons containing light (up, down, and strange) and heavy (charm and bottom) quarks can be used to examine the quark-gluon plasma and search for possible collective behavior small collision systems.

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