CAREER: Enabling a Rich Astro-particle and Exotic Physics Program in DUNE

The Standard Model of particle physics was a formative intellectual development of 20th century physics. While the discovery of the Higgs mechanism in 2012 was a crowning achievement for the Standard Model, many mysteries remain, including the role of the elusive neutrino. Neutrinos are elementary particles that rarely interact with ordinary matter. The Standard Model predicts three types of massless neutrinos. However, experimentally, we know that neutrinos do have very small masses, and yet they permeate the universe. Because they have mass, they can change from one type to another. Measuring properties of these changes, and comparing them to theoretical predictions, provides a promising pathway to discover how neutrinos shape our universe. To that end, the neutrino community is embarking on a challenging quest to complete the picture of neutrino physics through the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which will be a massive, 40,000-ton instrument optimized to detect neutrino interactions about a mile underground at Sanford Lab in South Dakota. This facility, being built during the next 10 years, will observe interactions of neutrinos produced at Fermilab and traveling 800 miles to DUNE and, due to its large volume, can also detect particles coming from astrophysical sources. This work seeks to develop ways to look for and identify signals for new physics.

The DUNE experiment offers a unique opportunity for a rich astro-particle and exotic physics search program, including: observations of low-energy astrophysical neutrinos, e.g. from supernova core-collapse, thus lending itself to multi-messenger astrophysics, and searches for other rare processes, e.g. proton decay and neutron-antineutron oscillation. If observed, these signatures would have profound implications for particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. The rarity of these signals requires continuous, high-resolution readout and processing of Time Projection Chamber (TPC) data from the entire DUNE detector. The resulting data rates for such a data acquisition (DAQ) scheme are prohibitively large and create a challenge: to develop readout and DAQ systems that are capable of significant data reduction and efficient self-triggering with zero deadtime. This award will carry out a unique and ambitious R&D program to develop novel readout and triggering techniques involving Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) deployed on FPGA devices, including a demonstration of some of these techniques at the upcoming SBND experiment, beginning in 2019.

This CAREER award will strengthen the undergraduate research experience of Columbia University students, including underrepresented groups. The project will also provide unique opportunities of involvement in cutting edge research in readout electronics, detector R&D, and computer science applications for data handling and data analysis, and further promote interdisciplinary research opportunities for physics and non-physics majors through a Seminar Series developed and organized by the PI. The award will sponsor an additional slot in Nevis Lab's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program for two years, specifically for non-physics majors interested in particle physics. Outreach to the public and local high-school students will also be carried out through lectures at local high schools and the Nevis Science-on-Hudson public lecture series. Recruited summer high-school students will develop a virtual reality visualization of a supernova burst, as 'seen' in a Liquid Argon TPC. This visualization will be demonstrated annually at the World Science Festival.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.