Title: Photo-detector technology enabling future discovery in astro-particle physics

Speaker: Fabrice Retiere （TRIUMF）

Moderator: Prof. CAO Jun

Time:10:00,June 23

Place: Room C305, IHEP Main Building

Abstract:

Liquid Argon and liquid Xenon detector are very well suited for studying neutrino properties and for the search of weakly interacting dark matter particles. Liquid Xenon appears to have a competitive edge for neutrino-less double beta decay search with the EXO-200 experiment and for dark matter search with the LUX and XENON family of experiments.

Liquid Argon is expected to make a comeback for dark matter search as the DEAP-3600 starts taking physics data before the end of 2015. And liquid Argon is also used as active shielding material for the Germanium based neutrino-less double beta decay experiment. Efficient detection of vacuum ultra-violet scintillation light is a critical parameters of all experiments using either liquid Argon and Xenon. A vigorous R&D effort is underway worldwide for the development of large area photo-detectors sensitive to VUV light either directly or through a wavelength shifter, with low noise and low radioactive content. In this talk we will describe the experiments DEAP-3600 and nEXO highlighting their physics reach for the discovery of dark matter and neutrino-less double beta decay respectively. We will then describe the technologies that are being pursued, in particular silicon photo-multiplier walls and hybrid photo-multipliers. Finally, we will expand the scope of this talk to encompass water Cerenkov and liquid scintillator experiments that do not require VUV sensitivity but whose operation at room temperature rules out using silicon based photo-detectors over large area.

About the speaker:

Prof. Fabrice Retiere received his PhD at Université de Nantes in France in 2000. He worked for STAR experiment as a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2000 to 2004.

After working as a postdoc, he joined TRIUMF in Canada as a research scientist. Fabrice Retiere is now the head of Science Technology Department, which belongs to Science Division in TRIUMF.

Fabrice's research interests focus on detector, dark matter search, neutrinoless double beta decay search and long baseline neutrino experiment. He participates in T2K, DEAP-3600 and EXO experiments. Currently, he is co-L2 manager for nEXO photo-detector.