Wednesday 29 October 2014 

Speaker: Justin Evans (Manchester University)


Title: "Measuring the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy with PINGU" 

Abstract: The PINGU experiment is an extension of IceCube, which which will 
make precision measurements of atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters 
using the Antarctic ice shelf as the detection medium. Using the tried and 
tested technology of IceCube, a region of ice with mass in the megatonne 
range will be instrumented much more finely than has been done with IceCube, 
bringing the energy threshold for neutrino detection down to the few-GeV range. 
With this, PINGU will be sensitive to the modifications to the oscillation 
probabilities induced by the MSW effect: the interaction between the neutrinos 
and the Earth's matter. This effect is sensitive to the neutrino mass hierarchy, 
and with three years of data, PINGU will be able to make at least a 3 sigma 
measurement of the hierarchy. With its relatively low cost and quick deployment 
time, PINGU is an exciting prospect for determining the neutrino mass hierarchy 
within the next decade.