Special Physics Seminar

Building Big and Thinking Fast: New Prospects for Neutrino Physics with Cherenkov and Scintillating Detectors

Matthew Wetstein

Enrico Fermi Institute
University of Chicago

The neutrino physics community faces stark technological tradeoffs between conventional detectors that offer large target volumes but poor resolution, and advanced, high resolution detector systems with limited scalability. In this talk, I present a third way. By fundamentally reinventing the photodetector, it becomes possible to develop high-resolution Water Cherenkov (WC) or scintillation-based neutrino detectors capable of more complete event reconstruction using precision measurements of the positions and drift times of optical photons. I will give a brief overview of the Large Area Picosecond Photodetector (LAPPD) project, an effort to develop compact, microchannel plate (MCP) photomultiplier tubes capable of sub-millimeter, sub-nanosecond spatial resolutions and with potential for scalability to large experiments. I will also discuss a first effort to realize LAPPDs in a neutrino experiment at Fermilab: the Atmospheric Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment (ANNIE). ANNIE is designed to measure the abundance of final-state neutrons produced by neutrinos in water, a critical measurement for future neutrino and proton decay analyses. Finally I will present some thoughts on the long-term implications of new water and scintillation-based technology for next generation experiments approaching megaton-scales.