- Austin, Texas, United States
Melissa Jerkins
The University of Texas at Austin, Physics, Department Member
We discuss questions raised concerning the proposal of kinematically reconstructing the neutrino mass using an ultracold source of tritium atoms (Otten E W 2011 New J. Phys. 13 078001). We provide further details about our two-dimensional... more
We discuss questions raised concerning the proposal of kinematically reconstructing the neutrino mass using an ultracold source of tritium atoms (Otten E W 2011 New J. Phys. 13 078001). We provide further details about our two-dimensional fit and emphasize the importance of simultaneously utilizing information from both the neutrino mass squared peak and the beta-spectrum. We also explain how the simulation evolved over various drafts of the paper, and we comment on future directions for additional simulation work, including more detailed simulations of spectrometers and electromagnetic field variations.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Physics, Atomic Physics, Neutrino, Astronomy, Isotopes, and 3 moreBeta decay, Supernova, and Neutrinos
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Passivating single crystal silicon surfaces with hydrogen is a well established technique. In the example of Si(111)(HxH) the hydrogen terminates the dangling silicon bond, and the resulting surface is very inert. We propose to replace... more
Passivating single crystal silicon surfaces with hydrogen is a well established technique. In the example of Si(111)(HxH) the hydrogen terminates the dangling silicon bond, and the resulting surface is very inert. We propose to replace the hydrogen atoms with tritium, which would result in a tritium passivated silicon surface Si(111)(TxT). This surface would be similarly inert and would give a tritium density on the surface of 1.5e15 atoms/cm^2. This tritium density suggests that Si(111)(TxT) may be useful as a source for tritium beta decay experiments attempting to measure the neutrino mass. One advantage of a Si(111)(TxT) source is that it would eliminate scattering of the beta. In addition this source is simple to construct and maintain for the life of an experiment, as it does not require any cryogenics and only modest quantities of tritium. Before this source could be used, the molecular final state corrections from the tritium bond with the silicon surface would need to be cal...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Physics and Cross Section
When I told my friends I was going to have two graduate research advisers, most of them responded with a consolatory, “I’m so sorry, ” assuming that I would end up with twice the normal amount of work and only half the mentoring; I owe a... more
When I told my friends I was going to have two graduate research advisers, most of them responded with a consolatory, “I’m so sorry, ” assuming that I would end up with twice the normal amount of work and only half the mentoring; I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Mark Raizen and Josh Klein for proving them wrong. I want to thank both of them for the countless conversations they have taken the time to have with me. Their love of physics is contagious, and their optimism and creativity is unmatched. They were always ready to ask the hard questions, listen when I was stuck, and offer timely encouragement. They treat their students as peers, and working with them for the past few years has been both a joy and a privilege. I also owe a special thanks to Aubra Anthony, whose work on SNO’s low-multiplicity burst search laid the foundation for much of my research. Thanks to Aubra, as well as to Stan Seibert and Gabriel Orebi Gann, for patiently answering all of my questions. I am inde...
Isotope separation is one of the grand challenges of modern society and holds great potential for basic science, medicine, energy, and defense. We present a new and general approach to isotope separation. The method is based on an... more
Isotope separation is one of the grand challenges of modern society and holds great potential for basic science, medicine, energy, and defense. We present a new and general approach to isotope separation. The method is based on an irreversible change of the ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Isotope separation is one of the grand challenges of modern society and holds great potential for basic science, medicine, energy, and defense. We present a new and general approach to isotope separation. The method is based on an... more
Isotope separation is one of the grand challenges of modern society and holds great potential for basic science, medicine, energy, and defense. We present a new and general approach to isotope separation. The method is based on an irreversible change of the ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Isotope separation is one of the grand challenges of modern society and holds great potential for basic science, medicine, energy, and defense. We consider here a new and general approach to isotope separation. The method is based on an... more
Isotope separation is one of the grand challenges of modern society and holds great potential for basic science, medicine, energy, and defense. We consider here a new and general approach to isotope separation. The method is based on an irreversible change of the mass-to-magnetic moment ratio of a particular isotope in an atomic beam, followed by a magnetic multipole whose