Dr. Mark Ross-Lonergan
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Neutrinos: Ghosts, Anomalies and Portals to the Dark Sector
Location: 1080 Physics Research Building
Faculty Host: Chris Hill
Abstract: Neutrinos, so called ghost particles due to their elusive nature, have consistently presented a fascinating yet perplexing narrative in particle physics. Their history is rich with anomalies and unexpected observations, often resulting in significant discoveries. The culmination of these experiments has led to the establishment of the "three-neutrino paradigm", which has been remarkably successful in unifying a vast array of observed data around the world. The international mega-science experiment DUNE is set to build on this, probing with incredible precision the remaining questions of the three-neutrino paradigm. However, several persistent anomalies remain and hint at the intriguing possibility we may be on the cusp of another groundbreaking discovery. This talk will delve into the exploration of these anomalies, and how using Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber technology the MicroBooNE experiment has begun to reshape our interpretations with its first set of results. I will also explore the rapidly growing interest in the potential of the neutrino sector to serve as a portal to the `Dark Sector’. Here exotic particles and interactions give an exciting new direction to all future short-baseline experiments, and I will report on MicroBooNE’s first targeted Dark Sector anomaly search and discuss what technological advances we need to truly probe beyond the standard model in future experiments.
Bio: Mark began his academic career in Neutrino Theory with a PhD under the mentorship of Professor Silvia Pascoli as part of the EU Marie Curie Initial Training Network, "Invisibles'', focusing on the rich and varied phenomenology that sterile neutrinos exhibit across energy scales. It was during a visit to Fermilab to collaborate with leading neutrino theory experts, hosted under a Neutrino Physics Center Fellowship, that Mark first was directly introduced to the wealth of experimental efforts underway. After several fruitful collaborations with both theory and experimental colleagues during his PhD, Mark made the jump to experimental neutrino physics joining the short-baseline neutrino community as a post-doc under a Ernest Kempton Adams Research Fellowship at Columbia University. Marks ongoing research has led him to be convener of the neutrino oscillation and "Low-Energy Excess'' working group in the MicroBooNE collaboration. He is now a Oppenheimer Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Lab.
