DrPatrick Dunne

Our current understanding of physics does not explain why the universe around us is made overwhelmingly of matter and not antimatter. My work studies differences between matter and antimatter in the oscillatory behaviour of a type of particle called the neutrino as it travels long distances. To address this question requires the construction of large experiments operated by hundreds of scientists that create very large volumes of data. I focus on the data science tools to analyse these large volumes of data and the high-throughput electronics needed to collect them.

I work on both the next-generation DUNE experiment in the USA and the currently operating Japan-based T2K experiment. T2K's oscillation analysis group has produced the strongest indication of these matter-antimatter differences to date (published on the cover of Nature in early 2020 and featured in the New York Times and over 90 other international media articles). DUNE will continue this work and precisely measure this phenomenon.

My current work focuses on using larger datasets from the T2K experiment and joint analyses of data from T2K and the NOvA experiment in the USA to produce the strongest measurements of these matter-antimatter differences this decade. This work is also the best place to develop our analysis techniques for use in the next generation of experiments. My group also produces sensitivity estimates for DUNE and the MaCh3 neutrino oscillation fitting framework I lead is used for the HK experiment too.

I am also involved in the development of the future argon-based DUNE experiment which will have the sensitivity to definitively confirm and precisely measure this phenomenon. Particularly I am developing the readout electronics for the high-pressure gas time projection chamber (HPgTPC) near detector, as well as leading the collaboration's HPgTPC working group.