Astrophysics Seminar with Nepomuk Otte on the Trinity Ultrahigh Energy Neutrino Observatory

Astrophysical neutrinos with more than petaelectronvolt energies are becoming increasingly popular as probes to understand the cosmic rays' origin and to search for new fundamental physics. Detecting them is a tremendous intellectual challenge due to the expected low event rate of order one neutrino in several years. No one has mastered the challenge yet, but the community pursues several promising approaches, which are coming to fruition. One is the proposed Trinity Observatory, a system of Cherenkov telescopes installed on mountain tops. By pointing them at the horizon, these telescopes will image the particle shower in the atmosphere that develops following the interaction of a tau neutrino inside the Earth. With its high sensitivity between PeV and 10 EeV, Trinity will fill the gap between IceCube and proposed radio UHE-neutrino instruments. I will discuss Trinity's concept, design, and scientific potential. I will close by discussing the Trinity demonstrator, which is under construction and will be deployed in Spring 2023 on Frisco Peak, Utah.

Sponsored by the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.