May 2021
Fascinated by neutrinos
“Neutrinos are my fascination – those ghostly particles that permeate our planet billions of times and yet are very difficult to detect and to understand. With new planned experiments – such as the DUNE experiment in the USA – scientists want to investigate some fundamental neutrino properties in more detail: for example, the phenomenon that the three types of neutrino constantly transform into one another – known in technical jargon as neutrino oscillation. To do this, they need important information from theoretical calculations: And this is where I come in.
©: Angelika Stehle
I am specifically concerned with the question of how neutrinos interact with atomic nuclei. This is where two PRISMA+ research areas meet, so to speak: high-energy physics and nuclear physics. I want to calculate very precisely from scratch – i.e. based on the fundamental theories we have – what happens when a neutrino hits an atomic nucleus.
From this, we can develop models and simulate processes that are in turn indispensable for our experimental colleagues when conducting and interpreting their experiments. In Mainz, in Sonia Bacca's group, I find ideal conditions for my theoretical research: The group is working very successfully on the prediction of properties of the atomic nucleus that can be derived from the forces between the nuclear constituents – the nucleons – and their interactions.
Specifically, I want to calculate the interaction of neutrinos with atomic nuclei of the elements oxygen (16O) and argon (40Ar) – both will play an important role in later neutrino experiments. A good example of the indispensable interplay between theory and experiment.”
Dr. Joanna Sobczyk has been a postdoc in Mainz since January 2020. She was initially funded by the Irène Joliot-Curie program – initiated by PRISMA+ – with a fellowship for transitional phases. She has since been awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship and a Marie Curie Fellowship.