Speaker: Rachel Carr.
Hosts: Yale Physics, Yale Wright Laboratory, Kimball Smith Series.
1-2pm, Feb 15th, 2024
Wright Lab, Room 216
272 Whitney Ave, New Haven
This talk is a Nuclear Particle Astrophysics (NPA) seminar. No registration required. For lunch with the speaker from 12-1pm in Wright Lab 216, sign up here by February 14 at 1pm.
Watch a recording of the talk here.
The potential for neutrinos as a nuclear security tool has been recognized for nearly 70 years – well before these weakly interacting particles were even detected. As an unshieldable emission from fission products, neutrinos are powerful messengers about the inner workings of reactors, nuclear explosions, submarines, and spent fuel. The flip side of that power is a serious practical weakness: as particle physicists have long known, capturing neutrino signals requires complex and often very large detectors. This talk will discuss a variety of ideas proposed for neutrino applications in reactor safeguards, nuclear verification, and related areas. Although none of these ideas have yet been practically realized, advances in detector technology are bringing some possibilities closer to reality. The talk will include both recent technical results and questions for the nuclear policy community with the goal of generating some cross-disciplinary conversation.
About the Speaker:
Rachel Carr is an Assistant Professor of Physics at the United States Naval Academy. She came to Annapolis following postdoctoral research at MIT, where she was a Pappalardo Fellow in Physics, working on neutrino and dark matter experiments, and a Stanton Fellow in Nuclear Security, working with nuclear engineers and political scientists on arms control projects. Previously, she was an American Institute of Physics Congressional Science Fellow in the office of US Senator Dianne Feinstein. Rachel completed a PhD at Columbia University and a BA in Physics and Philosophy at the University of Virginia.