Meet the Fellows | Professor Alfons Weber in Illinois
PAST EVENT | 19 May 2019 18:00
Join Professor Alfons Weber, Fellow in Physics, on Sunday the 19th of May at 6pm in the Red Arrow Tap Room to discuss his research of neutrino oscillations at Fermilab and bringing you updates of the College.
This is a casual and free event, in which you are more than welcome to bring a guest. Please register your interest by clicking here.
More about Professor Alfons Weber
"I started my career in physics doing a diploma thesis in phenomenology, looking into novel way of detecting relict neutrinos from the big bang, or solar and accelerator neutrinos. After this more theoretical start at the RWTH-Aachen, I switched to experimental physics and did my Ph.D. and first post-doc at the L3 experiment at the LEP collider at CERN. I searched for new particles (but didn't find any) and made precision measurements of the W-boson mass.
I returned to neutrino, when I came to Oxford in 1999. I started to lead the local MINOS group, who looks into the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations at Fermilab. We made a precision measurements using muon neutrinos from the NuMI beam line. Later I joint the T2K experiment in Japan, which looks for electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam. We were awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the measurement of neutrino oscillations and even found the first indication that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos don't oscillate in the same way. This process may eventually hold the key to understand why there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe. We need a new generation of experiments to really unlock the secret of the neutrino.
The DUNE Experiment is exact this. This very long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment is located in a neutrino beam that goes from Fermilab for 1300 km to the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). The DUNE far detector will consist of 70,000 tons of liquid argon and will have an unprecedented sensitivity to measure neutrino oscillation. Its main aim is not only to study the matter anti-matter asymmetry, but to look for neutrino from supernova explosions or for the decay of the proton. In the UK am the Principle Investigator (PI) of the DUNE/LBNF project. We are a group of 14 UK universities and 2 national laboratories and I planning the biggest neutrino experiment ever. We have recently been awarded M£65 by the UK government (BEIS) to build the DAQ system and the readout elements for the neutrino detector as well as contributing to the accelerator upgrade. We also take the lead in the design and construction of the neutrino production target.
Besides being a Fellow at Pembroke College, I hold a joint appointment in the sub-department of Particle Physics and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. I am a member of the Atom Society in Abingdon to promote all things science and technology to the general public. I am also organising the a yearly one week science festival."
Meet the Fellows | Professor Alfons Weber in Illinois
PAST EVENT | 19 May 2019 18:00
Join Professor Alfons Weber, Fellow in Physics, on Sunday the 19th of May at 6pm in the Red Arrow Tap Room to discuss his research of neutrino oscillations at Fermilab and bringing you updates of the College.
This is a casual and free event, in which you are more than welcome to bring a guest. Please register your interest by clicking here.
More about Professor Alfons Weber
"I started my career in physics doing a diploma thesis in phenomenology, looking into novel way of detecting relict neutrinos from the big bang, or solar and accelerator neutrinos. After this more theoretical start at the RWTH-Aachen, I switched to experimental physics and did my Ph.D. and first post-doc at the L3 experiment at the LEP collider at CERN. I searched for new particles (but didn't find any) and made precision measurements of the W-boson mass.
I returned to neutrino, when I came to Oxford in 1999. I started to lead the local MINOS group, who looks into the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations at Fermilab. We made a precision measurements using muon neutrinos from the NuMI beam line. Later I joint the T2K experiment in Japan, which looks for electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam. We were awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the measurement of neutrino oscillations and even found the first indication that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos don't oscillate in the same way. This process may eventually hold the key to understand why there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe. We need a new generation of experiments to really unlock the secret of the neutrino.
The DUNE Experiment is exact this. This very long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment is located in a neutrino beam that goes from Fermilab for 1300 km to the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). The DUNE far detector will consist of 70,000 tons of liquid argon and will have an unprecedented sensitivity to measure neutrino oscillation. Its main aim is not only to study the matter anti-matter asymmetry, but to look for neutrino from supernova explosions or for the decay of the proton. In the UK am the Principle Investigator (PI) of the DUNE/LBNF project. We are a group of 14 UK universities and 2 national laboratories and I planning the biggest neutrino experiment ever. We have recently been awarded M£65 by the UK government (BEIS) to build the DAQ system and the readout elements for the neutrino detector as well as contributing to the accelerator upgrade. We also take the lead in the design and construction of the neutrino production target.
Besides being a Fellow at Pembroke College, I hold a joint appointment in the sub-department of Particle Physics and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. I am a member of the Atom Society in Abingdon to promote all things science and technology to the general public. I am also organising the a yearly one week science festival."