Research

New measurements with neutrinos

Low-energy atmospheric and solar neutrinos are still an underused resource for precision physics, mainly because current detectors lack the size and resolution to exploit them. JUNO, DUNE and Hyper-K change that, and each brings something unique. JUNO has carbon's efficient neutron capture, DUNE has nuclear transitions in argon, and Hyper-K has sheer size. I develop the predictions and analysis strategies that turn these features into new measurements, from leptonic CP violation with sub-GeV atmospheric neutrinos to $\nu_\tau$ appearance, neutral-current solar neutrinos, and the cosmic-ray spectrum itself.

Dark matter and new physics with neutrino detectors

Neutrino detectors are also excellent detectors for new physics. I use them, and astrophysical systems more broadly, to constrain dark matter and new particles. Examples are dark matter captured in Jupiter or annihilating in the Galaxy, dark matter exchanging energy with stars near supermassive black holes, and new charged particles produced in air showers that reach the detector directly. A recent direction uses the very existence of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays as a probe of dark matter-nucleon interactions.

Particle transport and open simulation

Making the predictions of both directions above testable.

A proposed measurement is only useful if it survives realistic backgrounds and detector response. I work on the transport of particles and light through the atmosphere, the Earth and the detector, from electromagnetic cascades and atmospheric fluxes to analytic muon transport, and build it into open tools that any experiment can use. Prometheus provides end-to-end telescope simulation, softpaws computes effective areas, and Fennel calculates light yields.