Ice Fishing for Neutrinos

About the Talk We have melted eighty-seven holes over 1.5 miles deep in the Antarctic icecap to be used as astronomical observatories. Into each hole is lowered a string knotted with basketball-sized light detectors which are sensitive to the shimmering blue light emitted in the surrounding clear ice when ghostly particles called neutrinos pass through the Earth. These neutrinos are cosmic messengers from the most violent processes in the universe, for example giant black holes gobbling up stars in the heart of quasars, and gamma-ray bursts which are the biggest explosions since the Big Bang. Neutrinos will tell us if there are dark matter particles trapped in the heart of the Sun, and perhaps even reveal if there are additional dimensions in space. We will discuss the first science emerging from early data.

Cline Observatory will be open for viewing after the talk, weather permitting.

Francis Halzen

About The 2011 Speaker

Dr. Halzen is the Hilldale and Gregory Breit Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Principal Investigator for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole.  His particle physics research has brought him to the frontiers of astrophysics and cosmology, and indeed to the far frontier of the Earth.  With IceCube and its predecessor, AMANDA, he has spent the past two decades in Antarctica performing experiments that shed light on some of the most important questions in astronomy.  We are honored to have him as the latest astronomy Day speaker at GTCC.