REPU MAGAZINE N 3
2017 REPU Research Projects
2017
Claudia Parisuaña - General Atomics
DIII-D Fusion Facility, USA
Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars and years ago we
managed to achieve fusion here on Earth inside reactors. If we managed
to reach a steady-state operation in fusion reactors, we would have an
energy source that is inexhaustible.
Moreover, fusion is environmentally friendly, producing no combustion
products or greenhouse gases. Although fusion is a nuclear process, the
products of the fusion reaction (helium and a neutron) are not radioactive,
and with proper design would produce no long-lived radioactive waste.
During the internship, Claudia worked in DIII-D Fusion Facility. DIII-D
Program is a large international program and its mission is to establish
the scientific basis for the optimization of the tokamak approach to fusion
energy production. She collaborated with the Electron Cyclotron Heating
Group (ECH) inside DIII-D by analyzing the calorimetric measurements of
the gyrotron heat collector.
Víctor Valera - Yale University
Wright Laboratory, USA
Neutrinos are fundamental particles that were postulated by Pauli to
explain the energy conservation in a nuclear process known as beta
decay, where a neutron decays into a proton and an electron, but an extra
particle, carrying some extra energy is released, that extra chargeless
particle is the neutrino. Since their experimental discovery as a product of
isotopes decays inside a reactor core, neutrinos have shown the potential
to lead physicists to new discoveries and theories beyond the standard
model. Neutrinos come in three different types or "flavors". Although they
initially were proposed as massless particles, later experiments found that
neutrinos flavor oscillate while traveling through space, which means that
they turn from one flavor to another. This phenomenon is allowed by
quantum mechanics only if they had mass, changing the old paradigm.
Current experiments have raised two new anomalies related to a deficit of
neutrinos flux and discrepancies with the theoretical spectrum shape.
Victor was part of the PROSPECT, the Precision Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment. PROSPECT is a
neutrino experiment designed to study the emission of antineutrinos from nuclear reactors and the oscillation
of neutrinos over very short baselines. PROSPECT will make a precision measurement of the antineutrino
spectrum and search for sterile neutrinos, a new form of matter. During his internship, Víctor assisted with the
characterization of photomultipliers tubes for PROSPECT and analyzed data from the test detectors. He
worked on the testing of the PROSPECT prototype detectors, assembly of detector components, and the
analysis of test detector data.
10