Supervisors: Dr. Clarence Wret (clarence.wret@imperial.ac.uk), Dr. Ewan Miller (e.w.miller@imperial.ac.uk)

Long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments are entering the precision era with the next-generation experiments, Hyper-K and DUNE. These experiments will definitively measure key oscillation phenomena, including establishing if neutrino oscillations violate CP symmetry, and tests of the three-flavour paradigm.

Hyper-K will do so by collecting orders of magnitude more events than the current generation experiments, and the systematic uncertainties impacting the measurements will become a limiting factor. The two dominant sources of uncertainty are the neutrino flux, and how neutrinos interact with matter. Hyper-K will have two near detectors to make dedicated measurements addressing these uncertainties: ND280 and IWCD.

The programme studying the upgrades of ND280, intended for construction in 2032, is underway.  The Imperial group is leading efforts proposing and simulating detector designs, and how the designs constrain the most significant systematic uncertainties for Hyper-K’s oscillation measurements. Following a conceptual design report in 2027, candidate prototype detectors will be placed in test beams for evaluation and characterisation, and a technical design report is expected around 2029.

The Ph.D. project will involve

  • Developing simulation packages for detector candidates, including event reconstruction and selections
  • Studying the complimentarity of the ND280 upgrade candidates with the IWCD
  • Running oscillation analyses on simulations of the detectors to evaluate performance
  • Proposing near-detector designs which target specific systematic uncertainties
  • Contributing to the near-detector operations of ND280 in T2K and HK, notably the DAQ
  • Contributing to the test-beam programmes for the prototypes in Japan and Switzerland

Funding is provided by the Royal Society, and includes attending a school and a conference as well as T2K and Hyper-K collaboration meetings, which will involve (but not be limited to) CERN in Switzerland and J-PARC and Kamioka in Japan.