| Summary: | Presented on September 12, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. in the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, Room 144. Francis Halzen is a theoretician studying problems at the interface of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. Since 1987, he has been working on the AMANDA experiment, a first-generation neutrino telescope at the South Pole. AMANDA observations represent a proof of concept for IceCube, a kilometer-scale observatory recently completed. Runtime: 65:22 minutes The IceCube project at the South Pole has melted eighty-six holes over 1.5 miles deep in the Antarctic icecap for use as astronomical observatories. The project recently discovered a flux of neutrinos reaching us from the cosmos, with energies more than a million times those of the neutrinos produced at accelerator laboratories. These neutrinos are astronomical messengers from some of the most violent processes in the universe associated with starbursts, giant black holes gobbling up stars in the heart of quasars and gamma-ray bursts, the biggest explosions since the Big Bang. We will discuss the IceCube telescope and highlight its first scientific results.
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