My DPhil Study at the University of Oxford mainly explores the field of experimental neutrino research. More specifically, I would focus on the analysis of the data collected in the upgraded run of the T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) experiment to study neutrino interactions and their impact on neutrino oscillation measurements.
Charge parity (CP) violation is a promising answer to the asymmetry between matter and antimatter. However, the currently observed CP violation is not enough to account for the current matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the weak interaction in the lepton sector is the last possible source in the Standard Model (SM). The complex phase of the lepton mixing matrix, δCP, offers a possibility to quantify such violation.
T2K is one of the promising experiments to detect δCP. In 2020, T2K achieved breakthrough with its finding from its first run that the δCP favours large enhancement of neutrino oscillation probability. However, due to the limited data and the relatively large systematic uncertainties, the exact value of δCP still cannot be determined with high precision. Thus, the next step would be to improve the measurement of δCP by minimizing the uncertainties and by collecting a larger amount of data, which is exactly the goal of upgrade of the near detector, ND280, at T2K. It would be my task to contribute in the upgrade process.
As the ND280 upgrade is imminent and data collection would likely start within the next two years, my DPhil study gives a timely analysis of the new data to better model neutrino-nucleus interaction, thereby improving the precision of the measurement of δCP. Besides δCP , other quantities such as the oscillation parameters and the mass ordering would also have far-reaching implication on the next breakthrough in BSM physics.
These tasks require sophisticated data analysis skills and programming ability. During my research assistantship at Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore, I was the main programmer for several projects in the group, conducting Bayesian data analysis and building simulation in both MATLAB and Python. Furthermore, my master thesis on the extraction of top quark mass has equipped me with fluency in coding in the bash environment and in running multi-purpose particle physics Monte Carlo generator, PYTHIA. Having built a solid theoretical foundation of particle physics during my master study at the University of Cambridge and with learning from the leading experts of the various neutrino experiments, I am excited about contributing to the T2K experiment to help shed light on the neutrino sector.