Nikhil Mohan M.Sc.

Nikhil Mohan M.Sc.
  • Joined October 2021
  • Thesis Title: Neutrino Physics with the JUNO detector - Determination of Neutrino Mass Ordering.

Contact:
  • Phone: +49 2461 61 4735
  • E-mail:

Education

  • 2018-2020, M.Sc. in Physics
    Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kerala, India.
    Master Thesis: Study of Neutrino Oscillation Parameters using GLoBES Simulations

  • 2015-2018, B.Sc. in Physics
    S.B College, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India.

Research Activity

JUNO

I am working on the Neutrino Mass Ordering (NMO) analysis in JUNO where we extract the shapes of input spectra from the official MC simulation of JUNO (called the Offline Software) with full detector response. I am studying this software for simulating the reactor antineutrino IBD spectrum - signal events for NMO analysis and other IBD background spectra. These will be fitted with thousands of toy MC samples using the JUST Fitter, a software developed by our group initially to do solar neutrino analysis and sensitivity studies. JUST is currently further developed to include oscillation parameters as free fit parameters in spectral fits for the NMO analysis.

T2K

My project with the Neutrino group at ICISE (Vietnam) focused on exploring the physics reach of the combined sensitivity of long-baseline experiments, enabling improved constraints on oscillation parameters and conclusive determination of NMO and octant degeneracy (in case of non-maximal mixing). GLoBES was used to simulate the experiments and to calculate the statistical significance through Bayesian inferences.

An immediate milestone was the validation of our simulation with the T2K results [Phys. Rev. D 103, 112008 (2021)] at the event rate level and sensitivity level. Thus, the physics reaches of the simulated data samples we obtained are in relatively good agreement with the actual experimental setup. The feasibility of adding a short baseline reactor experiment like the Daya Bay experiment to the analysis is also explored.

INO

I have worked on the INO (India-based Neutrino Observatory) project called TIN.TIN (The INdia-based TIN Detector), which is a Sn cryogenic bolometer for the study of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (0νββ) in 124Sn, at Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. My objective was to study the systematics of detectors used to do background measurements, such as HPGe (semiconductor detector), NaIL detector (inorganic scintillator), and plastic scintillators. The latter was further studied to implement active vetoing of cosmic muons for background suppression.

Selected Events

  • DPG Spring Meeting 2023, Dresden, Germany, 20-24 March 2023.
    Parallel talk: "JUNO’s sensitivity to geoneutrinos using full Monte Carlo simulation".

  • The 21st JUNO collaboration meeting, Kaiping, China, 6-10 February 2023.
    Parallel talk: "IBD-like sensitivity studies".

  • The Fall 2022 JUNO European-American collaboration meeting, Ferrara, Italy, 24-25 October 2022.
    Parallel talk: "Progress on the full Monte Carlo production of IBD-like spectral components and geoneutrino sensitivity studies".

  • The 20th JUNO collaboration meeting, (virtual) 18-29 July, 2022.
    Parallel talk: "Towards IBD sensitivity studies using full MC simulation for the input spectra".

  • DPG Spring Meeting 2022, (virtual) 20-25 March 2022, Heidelberg, Germany.
    Parallel talk: "Studies on the sensitivity for the Neutrino Mass Ordering Measurement of JUNO".

    • Schools: