School of Physics Colloquium

Speaker: Dr. Jacob Zettlemoyer

Host: Ignacio and Nepomuk

Title: "Discovering New Particles with Neutrino Detectors using Accelerator Facilities at Fermilab"

Abstract: The Standard Model of Particle Physics is a well-defined theory that describes the building blocks of matter and their interactions. The Standard Model is a remarkably successful theory which has survived many decades of testing by many experiments. However, we have evidence that the Standard Model is incomplete with one of the examples being the identity of dark matter which is one of the big questions remaining in particle physics. The existence of dark matter theoretically motivates a "dark sector" new physics analogue to the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The existing beams at the Fermilab accelerator complex provide powerful sources to study particle interactions in the muon and neutrino sectors while also providing methods to probe the dark sector and search for new physics. Existing and future neutrino detectors such as the operating Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program and the planned world-class Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). These experiments use multipurpose detectors that in addition to studying the neutrino sector can be used to probe the dark sector and new particles that are not described within the Standard Model of Particle Physics. In this talk, I will present some of the remaining questions around the Standard Model of Particle Physics and describe how we can use the multipurpose neutrino experiments at Fermilab to search for new particles beyond those within the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

Bio: Jacob Zettlemoyer is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Neutrino Division at Fermilab. He received his Ph.D. in 2020 from Indiana University, Bloomington working on the COHERENT experiment measuring the cross-section for the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering process on argon. He then joined Fermilab where his research focus is searching for Physics Beyond the Standard Model using proton beam-based accelerators paired with liquid argon detectors such as the SBN Program and DUNE along with finding new ways to utilize liquid argon detectors for high-energy physics. He is also involved with work on new ways to use the Fermilab accelerator complex to probe for the existence of a dark sector.