Shengchao Li  2025.6

Welcome to our lab as a research intern. 

Students presenting their research in Summer 2024. 

Preperation

Before you start, check out our recent research papers [link] and preprints [link]. 

For general ideas of neutrino and dark matter, check out the following lectures and reviews:

Dark Matter

Dark matter models and direct detection (Tongyan Lin, UCSD)  Minimum: Ch. 1, 2, 4

[Our experiments]

XENONnT Experiment

A liquid xenon time projection chamber of ~4 tonnes, sensitive to DM-SM interactions. 

Windchime Experiment

A proposal to use quantum mechanical sensors to probe Planck-mass dark matter. 

Neutrino

Status and perspectives of neutrino physics (Manfred Lindner, MPIK, et al.) Minimum: Ch. 1, 2.2, 3.3, 3.4, 5.4.7

For general public material, check out "all things neutrino" by Fermilab

[Our experiments]

RELICS Experiment

A liquid xenon time projection chamber of ~50 kg, detecting neutrinos that are generated from the reactor elastically scattering with xenon nuclei. 

Research agenda

Your research agenda will be set during the first week of the program. But here we offer a weekly research plan from a previous intern, Mr. Li. 

Pre-placement & Week 1

• Accomodation!!!

• Literature review

• Basic knowledge of LXeTPC structure, S1 and S2, NR and ER, coherent neutrino scattering.

• SciComp: Python, Git, Linux commands

• Understand safety protocols. For example, the use of Ar gas.

• Discuss and confirm the topic with your supervisor.

Week 2

• Set up the environment (hardware and software).

• Try reproducing any existing scripts or data processing chains.

• Run some simulations, compare with others’ code, and try to improve.

• Keep clearly labelled lab notes on Feishu.

Week 3

• Make sure you’re on track. This is usually the week when new problems arise.

• More data & experiments.

• Share your ideas and discuss with others - it always helps.

• Solve (or gain insight into) the problems, present them during group meetings.

Week 4

• Re-examining your model & code, is there a way to make it more concise?

• For those doing practical experiments, account for mistakes, background components and errors. Justify your design and operations.

Week 5

• Poster session & presentation if possible.

• Discuss possible future directions and move on (if you have time)

Other tips:

• Stay away from e-cigarettes with etomidate.

• Do not attempt to stay overnight in the library, even though it opens 24-7.

• The ceiling of the academic ring contains inspirations, stare at it if needed.

• “Study once you have time.” ——Tenzing Tsondu