Unlocking the mysteries of the neutrino and its mass through the nucleus

中微子无处不在！宇宙中最丰富的大质量粒子，它们来自各种地方：太阳、地球和外层空间。每秒都有数以万亿计的病毒无害地通过我们的身体。然而，中微子极难被探测到，这意味着中微子仍然是宇宙中最神秘的粒子之一--也是唯一一种其行为无法用标准模型完全解释的粒子。标准模型是描述宇宙中所有基本粒子的复杂方程。由于中微子是电中性的，粒子探测器对电荷非常敏感，中微子是看不见的。我们只能在它们与物质相互作用时才能探测到它们，并产生它们的带电伙伴--像电子一样的粒子--具有三种“味道”之一。据预测，中微子的质量为零，就像光子一样，也就是光的粒子--但我们现在知道，它们有(微小的)质量，而且它们会在飞行中“振荡”，改变味道。这就引出了一些问题--它们的质量是多少，它们如何与味道相对应，它们是如何获得质量的，以及中微子和它们的反粒子的行为是否不同？研究这些问题的实验使用了许多不同的方法，通常涉及安装在地下深处的巨大粒子探测器。然而，他们都面临着一个共同的挑战：解释他们的测量结果需要了解中微子如何与原子核相互作用。这是极其复杂的，这取决于核结构的微妙之处和探测器中相互模仿的无数相互作用机制。然而，如果没有更好的相互作用模型，下一代中微子实验将无法达到他们做出新物理发现所需的精度。该协会提出了一种新颖的综合方法，研究核效应如何在不同的实验类型中表现出来。我们将使用位于法国阿尔卑斯山下的SuperNEMO的数据，寻找罕见的无中微子双β衰变，这是一种从未观察到的过程，可能有助于解释我们以物质为主导的宇宙。我们将增加来自弗吉尼亚州杰斐逊实验室CLAS的精确电子散射测量；并使用来自SBND的中微子散射数据，SBND是伊利诺伊州费米勒实验室的一种基于液体Ar的探测器，用于测试和改进核模型。我们将为沙丘实施它们，这是一项下一代振荡实验，由英国和其他国家投入巨资，将研究从费米实验室传输到南达科他州一个前金矿的SURF实验室的中微子束。由于研究中微子相互作用和无中微子双β衰变的独特背景，这次联谊会将使我有机会将所有这些想法、数据和机会聚集在一起，并使我们更接近了解中微子及其质量的奥秘。

Neutrinos are everywhere! The most abundant massive particles in the universe, they come from all sorts of places: the Sun, the Earth, and outer space. Trillions of them pass harmlessly through our bodies every second. However, they are extremely hard to detect, meaning that neutrinos remain some of the most mysterious particles in the universe - and the only ones whose behaviour can't be fully explained by the Standard Model, the complicated equation describing all the fundamental particles in the universe.Because they are electrically neutral, neutrinos are invisible to particle detectors, which are sensitive to electric charge. We can only detect them when they interact with matter, and produce their charged partners - particles like electrons - with one of three "flavours". Neutrinos are predicted to have zero mass - like photons, the particles of light - but we now know that they have (tiny) masses and that they "oscillate", changing flavour in flight. This raises questions - what are their masses and how do they correspond to the flavours, how do they acquire mass, and do neutrinos and their antiparticles behave differently?Experiments investigating these questions use many different approaches, typically involving huge particle detectors, built deep underground. However, they all face a common challenge: interpreting their measurements requires understanding how neutrinos interact with atomic nuclei. This is extremely complicated, depending on subtleties of nuclear structure and myriad interaction mechanisms that mimic each other in detectors. Nevertheless, without better interaction models, next-generation neutrino experiments will not be able to achieve the precision they need to make new physics discoveries.This fellowship proposes a novel, integrated approach, studying how nuclear effects manifest in different experiment types. We'll use data from SuperNEMO, located under the French Alps and seeking the rare neutrinoless double-beta decay, a never-observed process that could help explain our matter-dominated universe. We'll add precision electron-scattering measurements from CLAS, at Jefferson Lab in Virginia; and use neutrino-scattering data from SBND, a liquid-argon-based detector at Fermilab in Illinois, to test and improve nuclear models. We'll implement them for DUNE, a next-generation oscillation experiment with huge investment from the UK and beyond, which will study a beam of neutrinos travelling from Fermilab to the SURF lab, in a former gold mine in South Dakota. With a unique background studying both neutrino interactions and neutrinoless double-beta decay, this fellowship will give me the chance to bring all of these ideas, data and opportunities together, and bring us closer to understanding the mystery of the neutrino and its mass.