Julieta Gruszko, 2017-2020 Fellow
(Experimental Nuclear & Particle Physics)

'Shedding “Nu” Light on the Nature of Matter'

Why is the universe dominated by matter, and not antimatter? This is a basic and fundamental question, but we cannot yet answer it. Neutrinos, which are elusive neutral particles with tiny masses, could give us insight into this and other outstanding questions in fundamental physics. If the neutrino is its own antiparticle, processes that create particles with no corresponding anti-particles would then be possible, giving us a new path forward to explain the predominance of matter over anti-matter in our universe. To discover whether this is the case, we must search for neutrinoless double-beta decay, a theorized process that would occur in some nuclei.

Detecting this extremely rare process, however, requires us to build multi-ton detectors with very low background rates. At MIT, we’re beginning construction on NuDot, a proof-of-concept experiment that will explore promising techniques for future detectors. I’ll discuss the progress we’ve already made in demonstrating how previously-ignored light signals can help us distinguish signal from background, and the technologies we’re developing with an eye towards the coming generations of experiments.

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