PhD candidate in the Neutrino Group (DUNE)

Nikhef currently has an opening for a
PhD candidate in the Neutrino Group (DUNE)

Nikhef is the national institute for subatomic physics in the Netherlands. At Nikhef, approximately 190 physicists and 75 technical staff members work together in an open and international scientific environment. Jointly, they perform excellent theoretical and experimental research in the fields of particle- and astroparticle physics. Among the research collaborations Nikhef participates in are the ATLAS, LHCb and ALICE experiments at CERN, the KM3NeT neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea, the DUNE experiment in the United States, the Virgo interferometer in Pisa, the XENON dark matter detector in Gran Sasso and the Pierre Auger cosmic ray observatory in Argentina. Nikhef is a collaboration between six major Dutch universities and the Nikhef research institute.

The position
The DUNE Collaboration is constructing a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in the United States. A powerful neutrino beam will be sent from Fermilab, Chicago, to the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota, 1300 km away. The neutrino beam will be sampled by a Near Detector at Fermilab, as well as by a Far Detector at SURF. By careful comparison of the data of the two detectors, information on neutrino oscillations is obtained. Such measurements are sensitive to a rich physics program including the detection of CP-violation in the lepton sector, determination of the neutrino mass ordering and neutrino mixing parameters, and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. The Far Detector will consist of a number of modules, each a large liquid argon time projection chamber, capable of detailed reconstruction of neutrino-induced events. At CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, prototype detectors (ProtoDUNE) are under test.

The DUNE group at Nikhef has an opening for a PhD student. The successful candidate will work in Nikhef’s neutrino group, analyzing data of ProtoDUNE with the aim to prepare for DUNE’s neutrino oscillation analysis and maximizing DUNE’s sensitivity. In addition, the candidate is expected to contribute to hardware development, and contribute to ProtoDUNE commissioning and operation. The candidate will be based at Nikhef, Amsterdam, with regular travel to CERN and to collaboration meetings in the US and elsewhere. The work is carried out in close cooperation with our international collaborators in DUNE. The work is expected to result in a PhD thesis after four years.