Descrizione del progetto
Miglioramenti nella ricerca di neutrini sterili
Il termine «materia oscura» si riferisce a qualsiasi sostanza che interagisce prevalentemente attraverso la gravità con la materia visibile, che include le stelle e i pianeti. La sostanza rappresenta approssimativamente l’85 % della materia nell’Universo e circa un quarto della sua densità energetica totale. I neutrini sterili con massa nel regime kiloelettronvolt (keV) sono i primi candidati per la materia oscura. Il progetto SENSE, finanziato dall’UE, mira a sondare l’esistenza di neutrini sterili eV-keV in un esperimento di laboratorio con una sensibilità tra le migliori al mondo. Al centro della ricerca c’è la spettroscopia beta ad alta precisione. L’idea innovativa è quella di sviluppare un sistema rilevatore d’avanguardia a deriva al silicio che, combinato con l’esperimento KATRIN (Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino) su larga scala, aprirà uno spiraglio a segnali di neutrino sterile non accessibili altrove.
Obiettivo
What is the nature of Dark Matter? What is the origin of the neutrino mass? These are two of the most compelling mysteries, physics is facing today. Despite its tremendous success, the Standard Model of Particle Physics does not provide an answer to these questions.
Since the Nobel-prize awarded discovery of the neutrino oscillations, which proofs that neutrinos have a mass, the existence of right-handed partners to the known left-handed neutrinos is a basic assumption. This minimal extension of the Standard Model provides a natural mechanism to generate neutrino masses and can lead to the existence of new types of neutrinos, so-called sterile neutrinos.
With a mass in the kilo-electron-volt (keV) regime, sterile neutrinos are a prime dark matter candidate. This dark matter type is especially appealing as it can act as warm dark matter, the existence of which would mitigate problems in our understanding of large-scale structures in the cosmos. The existence of sterile neutrinos with a mass in the eV-volt (eV) regime can resolve puzzling experimental anomalies observed in short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments.
With SENSE, I aim to probe the existence of eV – keV sterile neutrino in a laboratory-based experiment with world-leading sensitivity. A unique way to perform this search is via high-precision beta spectroscopy. The novel idea of SENSE is to develop a beyond-the-state-of-the-art Silicon-Drift-Detector system, which, combined with the large-scale Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (Katrin) experiment, will open the window to sterile neutrino signals not accessible elsewhere.
My role as analysis coordinator of the Katrin experiment and the expertise in semi-conductor detector technology of my independent Max-Planck-Research group put me in the ideal position to conduct this ambitious research project.
The discovery of sterile neutrinos would be a breakthrough in science with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of matter and the universe.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
80333 Muenchen
Germania