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MIT Graduate Student Mentors Indian High School Team for CERN Experiment

MIT physics graduate student Manu Srivastava mentored a team of Indian high school students, Team attoPION, who were selected for the Beamline for Schools competition at CERN. The students designed and conducted an experiment to measure pion charge exchange, a process potentially relevant to the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE).

Srivastava, a PhD student in theoretical physics, was contacted by the students via email and, impressed by their genuine request for guidance, agreed to mentor them. This led to the team securing a spot at CERN in Geneva, where they spent two weeks developing their proposed idea into a real experiment.

Team attoPION was one of five teams chosen from a record 712 entries in the 13th annual Beamline for Schools competition. The six students, from four different cities in India, met through science competitions and mutual friends. Srivastava's role was to help them refine their experimental ideas for practicality and scientific interest.

The team settled on measuring pion charge exchange, a reaction where a positively charged pion interacts with a neutron to produce a neutral pion and a proton. Srivastava noted the potential relevance of this measurement to DUNE, a major neutrino experiment. Dave Newbold, a DUNE co-spokesperson, confirmed that understanding pion interactions is crucial for quantifying uncertainties in DUNE's measurements, particularly for estimating neutrino flavor and energy.

Newbold praised the students' proposal as "real experimental particle physics" and noted that, if successful, their work could contribute to a better understanding of this interaction and potentially yield a publishable result. He highlighted that "test beam" experiments like this are vital in particle physics, similar to how DUNE's detector designs were validated.

At CERN, the students worked hands-on with detectors and data acquisition systems, collected and analyzed data, and attended scientific talks. They encountered challenges, such as the rarity of the charge-exchange process they aimed to observe, requiring them to devise reliable detection methods. Berare Göktürk, a support scientist for Beamline for Schools, cautioned that producing a result useful to a larger experiment within the limited timeframe would be ambitious, emphasizing the educational journey and problem-solving aspects for the students.

Srivastava found the mentorship experience personally rewarding, seeing it as a way to encourage young people in India to pursue fundamental science. He acknowledged the students' high level of dedication and capability, stating they deserved the credit for their achievement.

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