College of Engineering Seminars & Speakers

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Astrophysics, Gravitation and Cosmology Seminar - Abigail Vieregg (University of Chicago) "Using Radio Detectors to Discover the Highest Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos"

Event Type
Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor
Department of Physics
Location
Loomis 464
Date
Aug 30, 2023   12:00 pm  
Speaker
Abigail Vieregg
Contact
Deanna Frye
E-Mail
ddebord@illinois.edu
Views
59
Originating Calendar
Physics - Astrophysics, Relativity, and Cosmology Seminar

The detection of high energy astrophysical neutrinos is an important step toward understanding the most energetic cosmic accelerators.  IceCube, an observatory at the South Pole, has observed the first astrophysical neutrinos and identified at least one potential source.  However, the best sensitivity at the highest energies comes from detectors that look for coherent radio Cherenkov emission from neutrino interactions.  I will give an overview of the state of current experimental efforts, and then discuss a suite of new experiments that are currently being constructed to discover neutrinos at the highest energies and push the energy threshold for radio detection down to overlap with the energy range probed by IceCube, thus covering the full astrophysical energy range out to the highest energies, and opening up new phase space for discovery.  These include the ground-based experiments RNO-G and IceCube-Gen2, as well as the balloon-borne experiment PUEO.

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