Speaker: Erin H. Yandel
Host: Dr. Afroditi Papadopoulou
Title: What Can Explain the MiniBooNE Anomaly?: Recent MicroBooNE LEE Searches
Abstract:
MicroBooNE is a neutrino experiment that uses a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) detector to investigate the observed anomalous low energy excess (LEE) of single electromagnetic shower events reported by the MiniBooNE experiment. By leveraging the LArTPC technology's ability to distinguish electron and photon electromagnetic showers, MicroBooNE is able to thoroughly test a number of hypotheses for the origin of the LEE. After five years of data taking from two accelerator beamlines at Fermilab, MicroBooNE has recently published results testing explanations for the MiniBooNE anomaly, including three single-photon searches spanning multiple underlying processes and topologies and a 3+1 sterile neutrino oscillation analysis leveraging both the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beamlines.
Short bio:
Erin Yandel got her undergrad degree in Physics at Cornell University in 2018. She then moved to the University of California - Santa Barbara for her graduate school studies where she worked in collaboration with Prof. Xiao Luo. Her PhD included working on two detectors that are part of the Short Baseline Neutrino program at Fermilab in Illinois: analyzing neutrino data collected by the MicroBooNE detector and working on installation and commissioning of the SBND detector. After receiving her PhD in experimental particle physics in 2024, she joined LANL as a Director's Postdoc Fellow where she is continuing her research on neutrinos as a member of the MicroBooNE, SBND, and DUNE collaborations. She is currently leading the Oscillations Working Group on MicroBooNE.
Event Details
Date/Time:
-
Date:Friday, November 20, 2026 - 2:30pm to 3:30pm
Location:
College of Computing Building (CCB) Rm:103
