2026 Eearly Career Proposals in the Physics Division

Thursday 6 Aug 2026, 15:00 → 16:00 America/New_York

Wigner Auditorium

15:00 → 15:10 An Overview of PSD Proposal Support: Early Career and More

Jeff Holmes leads PSD's proposal team, which offers expert support in developing and submitting competitive proposals.. This presentation will introduce the goals and modalities of the ECRP program, as well as the PSD ECRP cohort support that he has developed and championed over the past years. In addition, he will showcase the tools and methods available within PSD to support all proposal developments and submissions.

Speaker: Jeff Holmes (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

15:15 → 15:25 Testing the Standard Model of Particle Physics with Cold Neutrons at the Spallation Neutron Source

The overarching goal of this proposal is to test the Standard Model of particle physics by measuring a quark-mixing parameter of the weak nuclear force with world-leading precision and search for exotic interactions using cold neutron beams at the Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline (FNPB) of the Spallation Neutron Source. The proposed research will develop techniques to maximize precision in measurements of correlations and the lifetime of the weak decay of the neutron. As a result, the measurements will have the potential to discover physics beyond the Standard Model and open the door to new fields of fundamental physics research.

Speaker: Wolfgang Schreyer (ORNL)

15:30 → 15:40 Neuromorphic AI Edge Processing on Large-Area Single-Photon Sensors

Next generation ring-imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector systems for future nuclear and particle physics experiments will require large areas of single-photon-sensitive imaging planes. All currently available technologies to realize such planes up to square-meter size suffer from significant drawbacks. Over the last four years, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the Universit´e de Sherbrooke (UdeS) have developed three-dimensional photon-to-digital converters (3D-PDCs). This project will advance next-generation single-photon detection and real-time pattern recognition for RICH detectors by integrating 3D-PDCs into scalable, large-area sensor arrays with embedded neuromorphic processing, providing noise suppression and signal enhancement on the sensor edge.

Speaker: Oskar Hartbrich (Oak Ridge National Lab)

15:45 → 15:55 From light to discovery: Advancing DUNE’s scientific program with high-fidelity GPU-accelerated optical detector simulation

The DUNE experiment is the largest effort in the DOE Office of Science, with the ambitious goal of answering some of the most pressing questions about the nature of neutrinos. The ability to analyze data on DUNE is coupled to the ability of reconstructing its data, where detector simulation plays a key role. This project provides a path to simulate, in high-detail, the optical photon detector signals, which is a capability currently out of reach due to its prohibitive simulation times. If successful, this project will bring a range of benefits to the DUNE program, from better detector calibration to higher sensitivity to low energy events, ultimately improving its overall scientific program

Speaker: Stefano Castro Tognini (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)