Cyprus Gabriel-Menegay
Research Mentor: Timothy Chupp
Mentor Department: Physics, LSA
Author(s): Cyprus Gabriel-Menegay, Tim Chupp
Session: Session 2 (10:00 AM – 10:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Poster 71
Abstract
The concept that elementary particles like the neutron could have electric dipole moments was first proposed more than 70 years ago by Norman Ramsey and Edward Purcell. An electric dipole moment (EDM) is a separation between positive and negative charge along the angular momentum axis of the particle. The Standard Model predicts a very small value for the neutron EDM, but extensions of the Standard Model predict values closer to our experimental sensitivity. Detecting the neutron EDM would give us valuable insights into physics beyond the Standard Model, which is required to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe (baryon asymmetry). This experiment aims to improve the sensitivity of the world's best measurement to date by a factor of 10. The most difficult aspect of this measurement is knowing the precise details of the surrounding magnetic fields, so we need instruments that can make sensitive measurements of changes in magnetic fields. There are multiple layers of magnetic field measurement, and the purpose of my research is to build the readouts for the outermost layer (fluxgate magnetometers). I am constructing and testing the circuitry of the electronic readout of the magnetometers. Once completed, they will be installed in the neutron EDM experiment at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
