Bio
My current research is on KamLAND (Kamioka Liquid-scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector), a collaborative experimental effort which I had the privilege of joining in 2005. KamLAND is an ultra-low energy, high sensitivity, liquid scintillator detector located deep underground in the Kamioka mine, in Japan. Our detector has the capability to detect ultra-low energy neutrinos of the order of a few hundred keV. KamLAND has provided a precision measurement of Δ m212 using reactor anti-neutrinos, and yielded the first observational evidence of geologically produced anti-neutrinos.
Since April of 2007, the collaboration has been working on the purification of the detector with the goal of observing 862 keV, 7Be solar neutrinos. Two purification campaigns have concluded, with a total of 5.4 ktons of scintillator circulated through a distillation and nitrogen purge system. We have seen extraordinary reduction factors in 85Kr and 210Bi of about 10,000 and 2,000 respectively. This makes KamLAND one of the most sensitive low-energy particle detectors in the world. I am now focusing all my efforts on large scale data analysis, calibration source construction, and Monte Carlo simulation.