Janet Conrad

Research Interests

My work focuses on the lightest known matter particles, the neutrino. Their number far exceeds the atoms in the universe. Yet we know surprisingly little about these particles. Only recently, for example, we came to realize that neutrinos have mass, albeit very tiny. This became clear when neutrinos were shown to live a double life, transforming from one type into another through the quantum mechanical effect of neutrino oscillations. This effect requires neutrino mass that is not in the Standard Model.

Neutrino mass is the first recent “chink” in the surprisingly resilient theory of particle physics called the Standard Model.  Where there is one surprise, there may be more, so the purpose of my research is to exploit this opportunity through further study of neutrinos.  I am involved in searches for more unexpected “features,” covering neutrino interactions from MeV to PeV scales.

My group participates in the IceCube Experiment, using the world’s largest neutrino telescope—a gigaton-scale detector embedded in the Antarctic ice at the geographic South Pole. Our results have placed world-leading constraints on new particles and interactions and have tested fundamental symmetries at energy scales orders of magnitude beyond the reach of terrestrial accelerators. We lead a unique search for non-interacting (“sterile”) neutrinos using neutrinos that traverse the Earth’s core. By exploiting IceCube’s enormous baselines and energies, we have produced the first neutrino analysis to place meaningful experimental constraints on new physics at the Planck scale, including Lorentz violation, quantum-gravity-induced decoherence, and other phenomena beyond the Standard Model.

We are also leading the development of next-generation technology for particle physics through our participation in the IsoDAR Experiment.  IsoDAR will be the first high-intensity, cyclotron-driven neutrino source to operate underground.  It will be paired with the NuEye multi-kiloton neutrino detector at Yemilab in South Korea. The result will open a new branch of accelerator-based underground science, with an order-of-magnitude improvement in sensitivity to a range of Beyond Standard Model physics searches.   We are constructing the cyclotron that is at the heart of the system, which will deliver ten times more current than commercial cyclotrons for a similar cost. Beyond their use in particle physics, these accelerators have important applications in medical isotope production and as prototypical neutron sources for fusion materials testing. A full-scale prototype of this new type of cyclotron is now under construction.

Biographic Sketch

Janet Conrad received her B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1985, M.Sc. from Oxford University in 1987, and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993. She began as a postdoctoral associate at Columbia University and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1996. Most recently, she was the Walter O. Lecroy Professor of Physics at Columbia University.

More info:

• CV and full publications list