Deeper Talks: SURF Seminar Series
The Institute and SURF is proud of its researcher community and this series aims to strengthen the sense of intellectual community. It provides a platform for researchers to discuss their work, share insights, and foster interdisciplinary connections.
Upcoming Talks
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June 11, 2025
Topic: A Moving Target: Direct Detection in the Light Dark Matter Landscape (register here)
Speaker: Robert McGehee
Robert will highlight recent significant improvements in the sensitivity of ongoing direct detection experiments, especially in the MeV to GeV mass range. I will interpret these results in the context of the light dark matter theoretical landscape and motivate the work theorists need to do as these experiments increasingly plumb the depths of direct detection parameter space.
July 9, 2025
Topic: Solar Neutrinos: History and Observations (register here)
Speaker: Aldo Ianni
How does the sun shine? This is a long-standing question that scientists have answered by considering nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. In the late 1930s two reaction mechanisms were proposed to turn hydrogen into helium in the core of stars, namely the pp-chain and the CNO-cycle. These nuclear processes produce electron neutrinos besides energy. Neutrinos can propagate through the high density solar core easily. Therefore, they are a unique probe for understanding the energy production mechanism.
In 1960s it was proposed to search for electron neutrinos from the sun (solar neutrinos) in deep underground laboratories. The first observation was carried out in Homestake in 1968. This has been a breakthrough in solar neutrino physics and was awarded a Nobel prize in physics in 2002. With the Homestake experiment the so-called solar neutrino problem was born: 2/3 of the expected signal was missing. A new experimental program started to solve this problem. In the following 40 years several experiments were deployed in underground laboratories in different continents. This intense activity from an experimental and theoretical point of view eventually solved the problem consolidating the model of neutrino mixing and the origin of solar energy. In 2020 the Borexino experiment observed neutrinos from the CNO-cycle which accounts for only 1% of the solar energy. With this observation both energy production mechanisms claimed 80 years before were proved.
In the talk a review of solar neutrino observations and a discussion on the physics implications are presented. Details on the experimental challenges to detect low energy neutrinos are discussed.
August 13, 2025
Topic: How to Spot a Supernova from Deep Underground (register here)
Speaker: Kate Scholberg
Stellar core collapses create enormous burst of tens-of-MeV neutrinos on a timescale of a few tens of seconds after collapse and preceding optical fireworks by hours or days. These neutrinos can be observed in underground neutrino detectors worldwide. The neutrinos themselves carry directional information that can be exploited in order to determine the position of the supernova (or of the compact remnant, in the case of failed explosion) on the sky. I will give an overview of methods for low-latency pointing to core-collapse events with neutrino detectors.
October 8, 2025
Topic: Homestake to SURF: (1) The Early Days, (2) Thinking Beyond DUNE (register here)
Speaker: Jose Alonso
Abstract to follow.
November 12, 2025
Topic: SNOLAB Research Portfolio and 15-Year Vision for the Laboratory (register here)
Speaker: Stephen (Steve) Sekula
Abstract to follow.
Event Details
When: Monthly on 2nd Wednesday from 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. MT
How: online or in person at the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center
Who attends: Deeper Talks is intended primarily for a research-focused audience. Most participants are specialists within the featured discipline, though researchers from related fields frequently attend and contribute valuable interdisciplinary perspectives. Attendees represent a broad spectrum of career stages, including undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and senior investigators.
Event details:
8:45 a.m. Informational Video begins
9:00 a.m. Presentation begins
9:30 a.m. Q&A with speaker
9:50 a.m. Program concludes