Prof. Costas Andreopoulos, Neutrino Physicist at the University of Liverpool and STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

News from our group

2021

2021/06/18: New GENIE paper highlighting recent v3 developments
A new paper highlighting recent developments in the the well-known GENIE event generator is now posted at the arXiv (e-print: 2106.09381 [hep-ph]). The paper was prepared for a special issue of European Physical Journal Special Topics (EPJ-ST) curated by Prof. Sajjad Athar.

2021/06/16: New GENIE paper on neutrino-induced hadronic multiparticle model tuning
A new paper on neutrino-induced hadronic multiparticle production led by our PhD student Julia Tena-Vidal is now posted at the arXiv (e-print: 2106.05884 [hep-ph]). It presents a new tune of the Andreopoulos-Gallagher-Kehayias-Yang (AGKY) hadronization model in GENIE

2021/04/21: New GENIE paper on neutrino-nucleon cross-section model tuning
A new paper summarising the new neutrino-nucleon cross-section model tunes installed in the well-known GENIE event generator is now posted at the arXiv (e-print: 2104.09179 [hep-ph]). The new tunes improve the cross-section modelling of low-multiplicity inelastic channels (single-pion and double-pion production) and the modelling of the relative contributions of resonance and non-resonance processes to these final states. Our PhD student Julia Tena-Vidal was the lead analyzer and first author. Julia is funded through the Liverpool LIV.DAT CDT on data intensive sciences with a project to develop physics simulation to underpin discoveries in the neutrino sector. This is the first publication using the GENIE/Professor tuning interface developed by Liverpool RA Marco Roda. Initial work was supported by a Durham IPPP associateship award.

2020

2020/02/05: CERN Theory Colloquium by Prof. Andreopoulos

2020/01/08-10: Contributions to the Fermilab Generator summit

2019

2019/12/18: Francis wins the 2019 Rutherglen award
Congratulations to our PhD student Francis Bench for winning the 2019 John G Rutherglen Memorial Prize, for his outstanding work on the VALOR T2K 3-flavour oscillation analysis and his contributions to arXiv:1911.07283 and arXiv:1910.03887

2019/11/14: Contribution to T2K publication on electron antineutrino appearance
arXiv:1911.07283

2019/11/13: Prof. Andreopoulos inaugural lecture
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2019/10/09: Contribution to T2K publication describing world's most stringent constraints on leptonic CPV
arXiv:1910.03887

2019/10/01: Welcoming a new PhD student in our group
A warm welome to our new PhD student Jaiden Parlone starting today! His doctoral research focus on the T2K 3-flavour oscillation measurement using the VALOR analysis, Jaiden will be part of LIV.DAT, the Liverpool Big Data Science Centre for Doctoral Training.

2019/08/26-31: Contribution to NuFact 2019, Daegu, South Korea
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2019/07/08-19: Short-term visit to IFIC Valencia
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2019/06/22: Tom Ham passes his first-year viva
Congratulations to our PhD student Tom Ham (SBN/SBND) for passing his first year PhD viva!

2019/06/03-08: Contributions to the 2019 ECT* Neutrino Generator workshop, Trento
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2019/03/30-2019/04/03: Hosting the GENIE Developers workshop at Liverpool
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2019/03/30-2019/04/03: Hosting the SBN Analysis workshop at Pembroke college, Oxford
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2019/01/22-25: Contributions to PHYSTAT-nu 2019 at CERN
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2018

2018/12/21: Rhiannon wins the Best Experimental Poster award in NuPhys2018!
Our PhD student Rhiannon Jones wins the Best Experimental Poster award in NuPhys2018, competing not only against other students, but also against postdocs and even adacemics! Rhiannon won the award with a poster presenting her work on `Muon-Neutrino Charged-Current Zero-Pion Event Selection in SBND'. This is not the first time Rhiannon wins such an award! Clearly, a great talent in communicating her research. Congratulations Rhiannon!

2018/12/19-21: Contributions to NuPhys2018
Two PhD students of our group presented well-received posters in NuPhys2018, held at the Cavendish Centre in London. Francis Bench presented his work on T2K Three-Flavour Oscillation Analysis for the Determination of δCP, whereas Rhiannon Jones presented her work on Muon-Neutrino Charged-Current Zero-Pion Event Selection in SBND.

2018/12/18: A Professorship for Costas!
Costas Andreopoulos was awarded a Chair of Experimental Particle Physics for outstanding contributions to the Department and advancement of physics. Congratulations Professor Andreopoulos!

2018/12/14: Julia wins the Leo Carroll award!
Congratulations to our student Julia Tena Vidal for receiving the Liverpool HEP Leo Carroll award for outstanding performace during her first year of post-graduate studies. Awesome work Julia!

2018/12/10: Funding success - European Space Agency tender
The European Space Agency has awarded €200k to our group and to GMV Innovating Solutions for a preliminary exploration of the innovative and disrupting technological concept of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) applications based on neutrinos!

2018/12/03: Funding success - Liverpool GTA funding for a PhD studentship
Our group's proposal for Liverpool GTA funding for a new PhD studentship aiming at resolving the light-sterile neutrino anomalies using SBN data analysis was succesfull! We invite applications from suitably qualified candidates.

2018/12/03: Chris' PhD thesis defense
Congratulations to our student Chris Barry for succesfully defending his PhD thesis work titled `Joint Analysis of Neutrino and Antineutrino Data from the T2K Experiment and Indications for Charge-Parity (CP) Violation'. Well done Dr. Barry!

2018/12/29: Contribution to the H2020 Neutrino Oscillations Workshop
Costas Andreopoulos delivers a talk on the `GENIE3' at the H2020 Neutrino Oscillations Workshop, Valencia, Spain.

2018/10/24: Contribution to a newly-published Phys.Rev.Lett paper!
Publication of Search for CP Violation in Neutrino and Antineutrino Oscillations by the T2K Experiment with 2.2E+21 Protons on Target as Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 171802. The paper includes important contributions from the VALOR analysis which is being developed by our group since 2010!

2018/10/15: New SBN leadership roles for Costas and Marco
Costas Andreopoulos has been appointed SBN Systematics and Oscillation Sensitivity WG co-convenor, together with Daniele Gibin (Padova), whereas Marco Roda has been appointed Neutrino Generator WG co-convenor, together with Jarek Nowak (Lancs). Liverpool is heavily invested and has major leadership roles in the Fermilab SBN programme.

2018/10/16: Contributions to NuINT18
Our group is well-represented in the 12th International Workshop on Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions in the Few-GeV Region (NuINT18), held at GSSI, L'Aquila, Italy. Our post-doc Marco Roda delivers an overview talk on `GENIE v3', the first major release of the popular event generator in a more than a decade, while our student Julia Tena Vidal presents a talk on the `New physics tunes in GENIE v3'.

2018/10/13: More contributions to NuSTEC DIS Workshop
Costas Andreopoulos delivers a talk on the `GENIE neutrino-induced hadronization model' at the NuSTEC Workshop on Shallow- and Deep-Inelastic Scattering, held at GSSI, L'Aquila, Italy.

2018/10/11: Contributions to NuSTEC DIS Workshop
Our student Julia Tena Vidal delivers a talk on the `Tuning of pion production in GENIE v3' at the NuSTEC Workshop on Shallow- and Deep-Inelastic Scattering, held at GSSI, L'Aquila, Italy. The talk summarises the excellent work completed by Julia in the first year of her PhD!

2018/10/01: Welcoming a new PhD student in our group
A warm welome to our new PhD student Thomas Ham who will be carrying out research in the Fermilab SBN programme!

2018/08/20: Important new Departmental role for Costas
Costas Andreopoulos has been appointed Deputy Director for Equality and Diversity and will assist Prof. Tim Veal in this crucially important role, shaping up the REF and TEF environment, and contributing effectively to the implementation of the Liverpool 2026 strategy.

2018/07/20: A Long Term Attachement to support SBND
Good luck to our PhD student Rhiannon Jones who is starting her year-long LTA (Long Term Attachment) at Fermilab for work on the SBN programme! Rhiannon's LTA is fully funded by STFC.

2018/07/11: An important higher-education teaching award/qualification for Costas
Congratulations to Costas Andreopoulos for the award of a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), recognizing excellence and commitmment in teaching and learning in the higher education sector.

2018/06/07: Contributions to Neutrino2018
Our group had a strong presence in Neutrino 2018 in Heidelberg, Germany - The largest gathering of neutrino physicists to date with more than 800 participants! Five excellent posters were presented by our group in this conference: Our postdoc Steve Dennis described the VALOR neutrino oscillation fit, while our PhD student Francis Bench presented updated T2K electron-antineutrino appearance results from his VALOR-based analysis. Our postdoc Marco Roda highlighted new results from our global analysis of neutrino scattering data and the new physics tunes deployed in the latest release of the GENIE neutrino generator. Finally, our PhD students Rhiannon Jones and Julia Tena Vidal described some of the outstanding progress in our preparations for charged current zero-pion and single-pion measurements in SBND. Congratulations to all!

2018/06/22: Our new PhD students pass their first-year viva
Congratulations to our PhD students Julia Tena Vidal (SBN / GENIE) and Jaggar Henzerling (SBN / Deep Learning) for passing their first year PhD viva!

2018/06/22: A new SBND role for Costas
Costas Andreopoulos was appointed to serve in the and SBND Speakers Committee.

2018/02/13: A seminar on GENIE
Our post-doc Marco Roda presents a talk on `GENIE global tunes for LBL experiments - A first application: global fit of CC0π datasets' at the Cavendish HEP Seminar in Cambridge, UK.

2017

2017/12/21: Contribution to NuPhys2017
Our PhD student Francis Bench presents a poster on our VALOR `T2K Three-Flavour Oscillation Analysis for the Determination δ_CP' at the NuPhys2017 conference in London, UK.

2017/10/21: GENIE seminar in Bologna
Our post-doc Marco Roda delivers a seminar on `GENIE global tunes for LBL experiments - A first application: global fit of CC0π datasets' at the University of Bologna, Italy.

2017/10/15: MPHYS projects on Deep Learning
This year our group will offer two MPHYS research projects on Deep Learning applications for LArTPC event reconstruction: Our warm welcome to 4th-yr Reece Shaw and Josh Warren who will be joing us!

2017/10/01: Welcoming two new PhD students in our group
A warm welcome to our two new PhD students Julia Tena Vidal and Jaggar Henzerling! Julia and Jaggar will be carrying out their research in the Fermilab SBN programme and will help develop the GENIE global analysis of neutrino scattering data and applications of Deep Learning for liquid Argon TPC event reconstruction.

2017/09/27: Contribution to NUFACT2017
Our post-doc Marco Roda delivers a talk on `GENIE model and global fit to neutrino scattering data' at the 19th Intl' Workshop on Neutrinos from Accelerators (NUFACT2017) in Uppsala, Sweden.

2017/09/15: Rhiannon wins UK-wide HEP poster competition
Congratulations to our PhD student Rhiannon Jones for winning the poster competition at the annual STFC HEP Summer School!

2017/09/14: GENIE seminar at Fermilab
Our post-doc Marco Roda delivers a Fermilab NPC seminar on our `Global Analysis of Neutrino Scattering Data and GENIE tunes'.

2017/09/01: IPPP Associateship Award for Costas
Congratulations to Costas Andreopoulos for receiving an extension of his IPPP Associateship Award!

2017/08/04: Our VALOR/T2K work leads to first hints for CP invariance violation by neutrinos
Press release on the T2K hints for CP invariance violation by neutrinos! Our group played a key role in this 3-flavour oscillation result through the development of the VALOR analysis, and our PhD student Chris Barry was a lead analyzer. This beautiful and world-leading result will be presented in detail in Chris' PhD dissertation!

2017/07/06: Contribution to MCnet Monte Carlo School
Costas Andreopoulos delivers a lecture on `Neutrino Monte Carlo Generators' at the MCnet Monte Carlo School in Lund, Sweden

2017/06/22: Our new PhD students pass their first-year viva
Congratulations to our PhD students Rhiannon Jones (SBN) and Francis Bench (T2K) for passing their first year PhD viva!

2017/05/16: Contribution to published DUNE Near Detector Task Force (NDTF) report
Publication of the DUNE Near Detector Task Force (NDTF) report (DUNE-doc-1792) co-authored by Costas Andreopoulos and our post-docs Steve Dennis and George Christodoulou. Our group played a crucial role in this effort, co-developed the simulation of the High-Pressure Gaseous Argon Time Projection Chamber (HPGArTPC) option for the DUNE Near Detector (ND), and provided the first end-to-end 3-flavour oscillation analysis for DUNE for the evaluation of all ND design options.

2017/05/13: Contribution to CoSSURF2017
Costas Andreopoulos delivers a talk on `Neutrino Cross-Sections' at the Conference of Science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (CoSSURF), in Rapid City, US. Our PhD student Rhiannon Jones presented a related poster on our `Global Analysis of Neutrino Scattering Data and GENIE tunes'.

2017/06/29: Contribution to NuINT2017
Costas Andreopoulos presents the `Near Detector of the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Programme', while our post-doc Steve Dennis reports on the status of `Neutrino Interaction Systematics for the T2K Oscillation Analysis', at the 11th Intl' Workshop on Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions in the Few-GeV Region (NuINT17) in Toronto, Canada.

2017/05/15: URA travel grant awarded to Rhiannon and Steve
Congratulations to our PhD student Rhiannon Jones and post-doctoral researcher Steve Dennis who were awarded $1550 each by the Universities Research Association (URA) to present their work on the GENIE global analysis of scattering data and on the VALOR neutrino oscillation analysis, at New Perspectives at Fermilab. They were 2 only 11 early stage researchers who received funding by URA. The URA is a consortium of 90 leading research-intensive universities in US, Canada, Japan, Italy and the UK.

2017/04/19: Contribution to NuSTEC Topical Meeting on Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering
Costas Andreopoulos delivers a talk on the `Impact of Neutrino Interaction Uncertainties on VALOR Oscillation Fits' at the Topical Meeting on Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering in Durham, UK.

2017/04/15: CoSSURF17 travel grant awarded to Rhiannon
Congratulations to our PhD student Rhiannon Jones who received a $600 travel grant to present her work on SBND and at the Conference on Science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (CoSSURF17).

2017/04/10: Contribution to a newly-published Phys.Rev.Lett paper!
Publication of Combined Analysis of Neutrino and Antineutrino Oscillations at T2K as Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 151801. The paper includes important contributions from the VALOR analysis which is being developed by our group since 2010!

2017/04/04: Contribution to DIS2017
Costas Andreopoulos delivers a talk on `Neutrino-Nucleon/Nucleus Interaction Measurements at the Few-GeV Energy Scale' at the 25th International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and Related Topics (DIS2017) in Birmingham, UK.

2017/03/21: Contribution to 2nd Workshop on Neutrino Near Detectors based on gas TPCs
Costas Andreopoulos presents an `Evaluation of Systematic Constraints and CP Symmetry Violation Sensitivity with the High-Pressure Gaseous Argon Time Projection Chamber (HPGArTPC) Near Detector Concept' at the 2nd Workshop on Neutrino Near Detectors based on gas TPCs, at CERN.

2017/03/07: T2K seminar in Cambridge
Costas Andreopoulos presents the `Latest Results from the T2K Experiment on CP Violation' at the Cavendish HEP Seminar in Cambridge, UK.

2017/03/05: Funding approval - GENIE studentship as part of LIV.DAT
Funding approval for the LIV.DAT Liverpool Centre for Doctoral Training on Data-Intensive Sciences, providing support for several new PhD studentships. One of the students will work within our group and will focus on Physics Simulations to Underpin Discoveries in the Neutrino Sector.