My post-doc at the University of Rochester is with MINERvA, a neutrino scattering experiment that will run at Fermilab. Neutrinos have received a lot of attention in particle physics since the discovery of neturino oscillations in 1998. New experiments have run, and new experimental techniques have been developed to overcome the statistical limitations of earlier experiments. Despite all of the attention, the basic nuclear physics used in neutrino detection has not been studied for 20 years. MINERvA is among a number of new scattering experiments that will update our knownledge of the neutrino-nucleus scattering mechanism. Why do we care? For the best (and longest) answer to this question click here.
Why do I care? Aside from constraining neutrion interaction models that are vital to oscillation physics, MINERvA will also study a broad nuclear physics program (including structure functons, form factors, and nuclear effects across a range of scattering regimes - quasi-elastic, resonant production, and deep-inelastic scattering) that is interesting in its own right. The measurements from MINERvA will benefit the neutrino scattering community and also be a complement to other work being done in nuclear physics (ie. Jlab).
What exactly do I do for MINERvA? My current duties are largely hardware related. I'm currently the L2 manager for detector assembly. I'm basically responsible for construction and source mapping of 108 large detector modules.
More about MINERvA can be found here.
I have a simmering analysis effort at Jefferson Lab. We're using electron scattering data to study certain aspects of nuclear physics that are of interest to neutrino physics. Our current effort studies pion propagation in nuclei, specifically looking for signatures of charge exchange. I've had the chance to advise a number of very good undergraduate students working on this project over the past 2 years. More about Jlab is available here.
I organize the local group meetings at UofR. Links to meeting presentations can be found here.