SNOLAB User Meeting 2024

Canada/Eastern
Fraser Duncan Auditorium (SNOLAB)

Fraser Duncan Auditorium

SNOLAB

Creighton Mine #9 1039 Regional Road 24 Lively, ON P3Y 1N2
Miriam Diamond (University of Toronto), Stephen Sekula (SNOLAB and Queen's University)
Description

The biennial SNOLAB Users Meeting is a chance to share the status of active projects, plans or ideas for future projects, exchange information about user experiences, and engage with laboratory management about facility and community issues.

The 2024 User Meeting

This year's User Meeting is hosted at SNOLAB on June 26-27. It is scheduled the week after the NEUTRINO conference in Italy, and we are excited for projects to share new results and milestones with the community. This meeting occurs during a routine underground maintenance period, so access to the underground laboratory will not be possible. However, this affords more opportunities to engage in discussions on a range of issues, including research, EDI, governance, projects, and facilities.

Members of the SNOLAB User Community are invited to register for the event, submit abstract(s) for a talk and/or poster, and participate in this important meeting. Potential future members of the SNOLAB User Community are also welcome to participate, share ideas for future projects, and learn about the laboratory community, culture, and facilities.

This is an in-person event. With the permission of presenters, we will record talks and make those available after the meeting.

Deadlines

Ideally, we'd like to have registration and abstracts for priority consideration submitted by the end of next week (May 31).  Please consider this the priority deadline.

While registrations and abstract submission after that is possible, we may not be able to accommodate them. We'd like to have some idea about how many registrants we will have so we can finalize the agenda, hotel room blocks, shuttles, etc. 

Register and Submit Abstracts

Abstract submission is now closed. Thanks to all who submitted proposals for subject presentations and discussions!

Please use the Registration link to register yourself for the meeting. If you also wish to submit an idea (abstract) for a talk or poster, please use the Abstract Submission form after registering. Abstracts will be reviewed by the organizers before being accepted. We may not be able to accept every talk or poster idea, depending on demand. We will do our best to work with submitters to try to accommodate talks and posters that align with the goals of the meeting.

We especially encourage junior members of collaborations and projects (students, post-doctoral fellows, etc.) to submit abstracts for either talks or posters. We welcome multiple submissions from the same collaboration or project, but the organizers may (depending on the number of submitted abstracts) ask submitters and their collaborations to consolidate material for talks.

Talks should be planned for 15' plus 5' for discussion and questions. Depending on the abstracts we receive, we may elevate some of the proposed talks to 30' plus additional time for discussion.

Registration
Registration
  • Wednesday, June 26
    • New Opportunities and Directions: New Opportunities and Directions II
      • 19
        nEXO: Searching for 0νββ
        Speaker: Erica Caden (SNOLAB)
      • 20
        FLUKA/GEANT4 Comparisons: Progress and Differences

        Owing to its depth underground, SNOLAB is an excellent site for hosting rare event searches such as searches for WIMP-like dark matter or neutrinoless double beta decay. The overburden of rock at SNOLAB provides a reduction in the cosmic muon flux of over 7 orders of magnitude as compared to the flux at sea level. Still, even the residual fluxes of cosmic muons can contribute to backgrounds; either themselves or by producing secondaries locally.

        Adequate background models for such rare event experiments include calculations— typically via Monte Carlo simulations— of these would-be steady-state backgrounds. Common simulation toolkits like GEANT4 and FLUKA are deployed to transport the virtual particles through detector configurations wherein they randomly interact according to various material cross sections (to the extent which they are known). Often, those tasked with performing virtual measurements with simulations will compare results between the canonized FLUKA and GEANT4 as a test for convergence. Without delving into the underlying mechanics of the simulations with any profundity, I will discuss the effort within one such rare event search, nEXO to quantify cosmogenic activation using both GEANT4 and FLUKA

        Speaker: Regan Ross (McGill University)
      • 21
        Harmonizing muon flux modelling for SNOLAB
        Speaker: Soud Al Kharusi (Stanford University)
      • 22
        Rare nuclear decays for standard and exotic physics
        Speaker: Phillipe Di Stefano (Queen’s University)
      • 23
        Single photon detection at SNOLAB and beyond

        Single photon detectors are used in a wide range of experiments at SNOLAB, from SNO, to DEAP-3600, and experiments on the horizon, nEXO and ARGO. The technology continues to evolve from vacuum Photo-multiplier tube to Silicon photo-multiplers, to the future "photon to bit" converter. I will review the evolution of the technology and highlights its relevance to ongoing and future experiments at SNOLAB and show how the technology can be used beyond asto-particle physics.

        Speaker: Fabrice Retiere (TRIUMF)
    • 10:40 AM
      BREAK
    • Project and Experiment Support: Funding and Project Support

      Presentations by and discussions with funding agencies and other stakeholders

    • 12:30 PM
      LUNCH
    • Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigeneity (EDII): EDII and SNOLAB
    • 2:30 PM
      BREAK
    • Project and Experiment Support: User Support and Issues

      Presentations by and discussions with funding agencies and other stakeholders