2018 CAP Congress / Congrès de l'ACP 2018

10-16 June 2018
Dalhousie University
America/Halifax timezone
Welcome to the 2018 CAP Congress Program website! / Bienvenue au siteweb du programme du Congrès de l'ACP 2018!

Massive Neutrino Search in $\pi \rightarrow e \nu$ Decay

11 Jun 2018, 11:45
15m
SUB 307 (cap.80) (Dalhousie University)

SUB 307 (cap.80)

Dalhousie University

Oral (Non-Student) / Orale (non-étudiant(e)) Particle Physics / Physique des particules (PPD)

Speaker

Dr Tristan Sullivan (Queen's University)

Description

The PIENU experiment at TRIUMF aims to make a high-precision measurement of the $\pi \rightarrow e \nu$ branching ratio: $R_{\pi} = \frac{\Gamma\left(\pi \rightarrow e \nu \hspace{1 mm} + \hspace{1 mm} \pi \rightarrow e \nu \gamma \right)}{\Gamma\left(\pi \rightarrow \mu \nu \hspace{1 mm} + \hspace{1 mm} \pi \rightarrow \mu \nu \gamma \right)}.$ Measurement of $R_{\pi}$ provides a sensitive test of lepton universality and tight constraints on many new physics scenarios. In addition, a heavy neutrino lighter than the pion could be detected through its effect on the $\pi \rightarrow e \nu$ energy spectrum.

New results will be presented, using the full PIENU dataset, placing limits on the mixing of a neutrino of mass 60-135 MeV/$c^2$ with the electron neutrino. These limits are improved by up to an order of magnitude over previous results. The status of the branching ratio analysis will be presented as well.

Primary author

Dr Tristan Sullivan (Queen's University)