Date:  Wednesday 05 June 2019
Speaker:  Anatael Cabrera (APC Paris)
Title:  "LiquidO: Novel Opaque Neutrino Detection Technology"


The neutrino discovery, by Reines & Cowan, paved the technical ground behind the establishment of much of 
today’s neutrino detection. Large instrumented volumes can and have been achieved via a key (implicit) 
principle: detector transparency. Much of that technology has yielded historical success since the 50’s, 
including several Nobel prizes. The discovery of Neutrino Oscillation phenomenon is the latest example, thus 
solving the long standing “Solar” and “Atmospheric” anomalies by SNO and SuperKamiokande — along with many 
other experiments. Despite the remarkable success, much of such a “transparent technology” is known to suffer 
from some key limitations even after 70 years of maturity towards perfection. The challenge continues to be 
to endow detectors with powerful active background rejection while allowing large volume articulation. Indeed, 
poor native particle identification is a long standing issue long alleviated by adding external shielding 
(active or passive), including major overburden granted by underground laboratories. In this seminar, I shall 
present for the first time a new technology, under intense R&D, called “LiquidO” relying heavily on detection 
medium opacity for the first time. The effort is led by the LiquidO collaboration (20 institutions over 
11 countries). We shall compare LiquidO to its transparent counterpart for maximal appreciation. While not perfect, 
LiquidO seems to be able to offer several detection features that might lead to breakthrough potential in the 
context of both neutrino and rare decay physics. This will be briefly highlighted too.