James Kneller
The Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Series presents James Kneller of the North Carolina State University on “Neutrinos in Supernovae” on Friday, Oct. 9, at 4:10 p.m. in Walter 245.
Abstract: Studying the neutrino with experiments here on Earth is a slow business. This fundamental particle is just so ephemeral under terrestrial conditions that experimenters must push the boundaries of detector technology and their patience in order to measure its properties. In contrast, a core-collapse supernovae pushes Nature’s boundaries of temperature and density to the point where neutrinos become strongly coupled components of the system. In such an environment it has been shown a laundry list of neutrino properties – both Standard Model and Beyond Standard Model – alters the dynamics of the explosion. Furthermore, the neutrino signal from the next supernova in our Galaxy will also allow us to observe to the heart the explosion and extract quantitative information we can use to compare to simulations. In this talk I present some of the contributions we at NC State have made in recent years to the understanding of the phenomenology of neutrinos in supernovae. I will pay particular attention to our recent demonstration that neutrino flavor transformation in a turbulent medium is similar to the interaction of light and matter and show how the recent generalization of the techniques we developed allow us to better understand the neutrino evolution with self-interaction as well as find uses well beyond neutrino astrophysics.
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