Contemporary particle physics with ultracold neutrons at TRIUMF

Event Date:
2019-07-03T10:30:00
2019-07-03T12:00:00
Event Location:
Henning 318
Speaker:
Beatrice Franke
Related Upcoming Events:
Other Talks
Local Contact:

Leanne Ebbs

Event Information:

In this presentation I will introduce the new ultracold neutron (UCN) facility which has been commissioned at TRIUMF on South UBC campus in 2017. UCN are free neutrons which move at very low speeds, thus they behave like a gas and can be stored and observed for macroscopic periods of time (order ~100s). This enables us to investigate their fundamental properties to unprecedented precision and challenge our current understanding of the underlying symmetries and interactions by probing the standard model of particle physics and beyond.

In particular, the Japanese-Canadian TUCAN (TRIUMF UltraCold Advanced Neutron) collaboration aims at searching for a neutron electric dipole moment. Measuring or improving the sensitivity for this elusive quantity would help us understand why there is so much more matter in the universe than antimatter, which is the basis of our existence as human mankind.

An imminent upgrade of TRIUMF’s UCN facility will not only allow TUCAN to do so competitively, but also prospectively enable UCN researchers to perform many other exciting experiments with impact on modern physics questions - adressing the field of low energy/high precision physics which is complementary to e.g. collider physics.

I will give some further examples of such experiments as well as briefly highlight overlaps with related applied techniques which TUCAN and other UCN groups rely on such as: nuclear magnetic resonance, atomic physics, high precision magnetometry, neutron optics, superfluid helium cryo technology etc.

 

BIO

During her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree studies, Beatrice Franke was involved in different experiments with ultracold neutrons which were based at TUM in München, Germany. She obtained her PhD from ETH Zürich, while being employed as doctoral student at PSI in Villigen, Switzerland, where she continued to perform research with ultracold neutrons. She developed specialized expertise in the observation and manipulation of magnetic fields with respect to their homogeneity and stability. Those are very important tools in high precision experiments, and additionally allowed her to search for and constrain exotic interactions mediated by axionlike particles.
Later Beatrice moved on to a postdoctoral appointment at the MPQ in Garching, Germany, where she took part in laser spectroscopy of light muonic atoms. Such systems are highly sensitive to the structural properties of the nucleus to which the muon is bound. She studied the intricacies of these systems such as muon-specific quantum electro dynamics, nuclear polarizability, and geometry dependence of quantum interference in laser spectroscopy.
Since now three years she holds an NSERC elegible research scientist position at TRIUMF, where she has switched her scientific focus back to ultracold neutrons. Currently mainly involved in the design of a next generation spectrometer for the search of a non-zero electric dipole moment of the neutron..

 

Add to Calendar 2019-07-03T10:30:00 2019-07-03T12:00:00 Contemporary particle physics with ultracold neutrons at TRIUMF Event Information: In this presentation I will introduce the new ultracold neutron (UCN) facility which has been commissioned at TRIUMF on South UBC campus in 2017. UCN are free neutrons which move at very low speeds, thus they behave like a gas and can be stored and observed for macroscopic periods of time (order ~100s). This enables us to investigate their fundamental properties to unprecedented precision and challenge our current understanding of the underlying symmetries and interactions by probing the standard model of particle physics and beyond. In particular, the Japanese-Canadian TUCAN (TRIUMF UltraCold Advanced Neutron) collaboration aims at searching for a neutron electric dipole moment. Measuring or improving the sensitivity for this elusive quantity would help us understand why there is so much more matter in the universe than antimatter, which is the basis of our existence as human mankind. An imminent upgrade of TRIUMF’s UCN facility will not only allow TUCAN to do so competitively, but also prospectively enable UCN researchers to perform many other exciting experiments with impact on modern physics questions - adressing the field of low energy/high precision physics which is complementary to e.g. collider physics. I will give some further examples of such experiments as well as briefly highlight overlaps with related applied techniques which TUCAN and other UCN groups rely on such as: nuclear magnetic resonance, atomic physics, high precision magnetometry, neutron optics, superfluid helium cryo technology etc.   BIO During her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree studies, Beatrice Franke was involved in different experiments with ultracold neutrons which were based at TUM in München, Germany. She obtained her PhD from ETH Zürich, while being employed as doctoral student at PSI in Villigen, Switzerland, where she continued to perform research with ultracold neutrons. She developed specialized expertise in the observation and manipulation of magnetic fields with respect to their homogeneity and stability. Those are very important tools in high precision experiments, and additionally allowed her to search for and constrain exotic interactions mediated by axionlike particles. Later Beatrice moved on to a postdoctoral appointment at the MPQ in Garching, Germany, where she took part in laser spectroscopy of light muonic atoms. Such systems are highly sensitive to the structural properties of the nucleus to which the muon is bound. She studied the intricacies of these systems such as muon-specific quantum electro dynamics, nuclear polarizability, and geometry dependence of quantum interference in laser spectroscopy. Since now three years she holds an NSERC elegible research scientist position at TRIUMF, where she has switched her scientific focus back to ultracold neutrons. Currently mainly involved in the design of a next generation spectrometer for the search of a non-zero electric dipole moment of the neutron..   Event Location: Henning 318