JOCELYN MONROE, Pappalardo
Fellow in Physics: 2006-09
Research Interests
Jocelyn currently works on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) experiment,
and on developing a new kind of detector to search for the dark matter wind.
SNO studies the rate, energy spectrum, and flavor composition of neutrinos
from the sun. In 2001, SNO solved the long-standing mystery of the missing
solar neutrinos by discovering that ~60% of the electron-flavor neutrinos
oscillate to muon- and tau-flavored neutrinos before their 93 million mile
journey from the sun to the SNO detector in Sudbury, Ontario. Since then,
SNO has been exploring this fascinating phenomenon. Jocelyn works on the 3rd
phase of SNO, which seeks to measure the ^8B solar neutrino flux to an accuracy
of a few percent, and specifically on simulating the neutral current detector
system.
Dark matter has never been observed to interact in terrestrial detectors,
however, astronomical measurements indicate that ~25% the universe is made
of dark matter. Jocelyn works on direct detection of dark matter, searching
for dark matter particle-nucleus scattering in a low-pressure gas time
projection chamber. The motion of the earth through the galaxy creates an
apparent wind of dark matter particles, blowing opposite to the direction of
the earth's motion. Jocelyn's work focuses on detecting the tracks of nuclear
recoils in dark matter interactions, to measure the direction of the dark
matter wind. Directional detection is potentially a powerful discriminator
between a dark matter signal and terrestrial backgrounds.
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Biographical Sketch
Dr. Jocelyn Monroe is currently a Pappalardo Fellow in MIT's Laboratory for Nuclear
Science, and as of fall 2009 she will be an Assistant Professor in the MIT Department of Physics. Jocelyn earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2006. Her
dissertation research was on the MiniBooNE neutrino oscillation experiment,
with advisor Prof. Michael Shaevitz. In 1999-2000, she held the position
of Engineering Physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where
her research was on the physics of muon beam cooling. Jocelyn earned her
B.A. in Astrophysics at Columbia University in 1999.
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Selected Publications
J. Monroe and P. Fisher, "Neutrino Backgrounds to Dark Matter Searches,"
Phys. Rev. D76:033007, 2007.
D. Dujmic et al., "Observation of the Head-Tail Effect in Nuclear Recoils
of Low Energy Neutrons," arXiv:0708.2370, accepted to NIM, 2007.
A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al., "A Search for Electron Neutrino Appearance
at the Delta m^2 = 1 eV^2 Scale," Phys. Rev. Lett. 98:231801, 2007.
A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al., "Measurement of Muon Neutrino Quasi-Elastic
Scattering on Carbon," arXiv:0706.0926, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett., 2007.
J. Monroe et al., "Design and Simulation of Muon Ionization Cooling
Channels for the Fermilab Neutrino Factory Feasibility Study," Phys. Rev.
ST Accel. Beams 4:041301, 2001.
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