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Juan I. Collar
Professor
Ph.D., University of South Carolina, 1992
Contact Information Phone: 773-702-4253 Location: ERC 489 Email: collar kicp.uchicago.edu WWW: Web Site Research A prototype bubble chamber sensitive to Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). My main interest is in the development of innovative methods for the detection for hypothetical astroparticles (WIMPs, axions, magnetic monopoles, any yet-to-be-discovered component of cosmic rays that might constitute a fraction of the 'dark matter'). Needless to say, this is a risky business, but I am equally interested in the journey and the destination: the extreme levels of sensitivity required in some of these experiments force us to devise new detection technologies, in an endless quest for the 'better mouse-trap'. It is a very enjoyable challenge. I am also attracted to other exotica such as double-beta decay and some 'hard' problems in neutrino detection (coherent neutrino scattering, detection of the relic neutrino sea). I enjoy the condensed-matter aspects of detector development and anything having to do with the interactions between radiation and matter. I get easily excited about cross-disciplinary endeavors and real-life applications of detectors that might otherwise be chasing ghost particles. Together with collaborators at the Groupe de Physique des Solides (Universite Paris VII), University of Lisbon, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, I developed large-mass, low-background superheated droplet detectors (SDDs) dedicated to WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle) searches (The SIMPLE dark matter search). On my arrival to Chicago I started investigating the possibility of making large bubble chambers stable enough for the same goal, using CF3I, a target ideal for WIMP detection. Our collaboration with FNAL and Indiana University (The Chicago Observatory for Underground Particle Physics, COUPP) has already led to the best sensitivity to spin-dependent WIMP interactions. We presently work on a 60 kg and 500 kg CF3I chamber. We expect the first, to be installed in SNOlab during 2010, to provide a similar leading sensitivity also to spin-independent WIMP couplings. At CERN I am involved in CAST, a search for solar axions using a decommissioned LHC test magnet, an interesting astroparticle spin-off from the Large Hadron Collider effort. More recently, I have worked on the application of P-type Point Contact germanium detectors to coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering, double beta decay and searches for light dark matter candidates. These devices have already produced some very interesting results within the CoGeNT and MAJORANA experiments. Ongoing Scientific Projects: KICP Highlights & News - KICP plays a major role in 2 of Science magazine's 2017 Breakthroughs of the Year!, KICP News
- Congratulations to Dr. Bjorn Scholz!, KICP News
- Observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, KICP News
- Ever-Elusive Neutrinos Spotted Bouncing Off Nuclei for the First Time, Scientific American
- World's smallest neutrino detector observes elusive interactions of particles, UChicago News
- New World-Leading Limit on Dark Matter Search from PICO Experiment, SNOLAB News
- Congratulations to Dr. Alan Robinson!, KICP News
- Horizon 2015 : Dancing in the Dark - The End of Physics?, BBC
- Congratulations to Dr. Nicole Fields!, KICP News
- Dark Matter Experiment Has Detected Nothing, Researchers Say Proudly, The New York Times
- New dark matter detector begins search for invisible particles, The University of Chicago News Office
- The first COUPP-60 bubble at SNOLAB, KICP News
- Dark Matter, Discovery Channel's "Daily Planet"
- New Twist in the Search for Dark Matter, Wired Science
- Dr. Phil Barbeau has been named co-winner of the 2012 DNP Dissertation Award, KICP News
- The Hunt for Dark Matter: A Conversation with KICP's Juan Collar, Kavli Foundation Newsletter, Vol. 4, Issue 3, 2011
- The proposal for our new Physics Frontier Center -- Pushing Cosmology to the Edge -- has been funded by NSF, KICP News
- New data still have scientists in dark over dark matter, The University of Chicago News Office
- The Hunt for Dark Matter in the Universe, Kavli Foundation
- Second experiment hints at seasonal dark matter signal, NewScientist
- Signs of dark matter from Minnesota mine, ScienceNews
- Congratulations to Dr. Matthew Szydagis!, KICP News
- Dark matter hunt deepens at Ontario mine, CBCNews
- Dark-matter search plunges physicists to new depths, The University of Chicago News Office
- A CoGeNT result in the hunt for dark matter, NatureNews
- Luce fellow works to add new knowledge about universe, The University of Chicago Chronicle
- Slacker Astronomy: Juan Collar and Detecting Dark Matter, Slacker Astronomy
- Dark Matter COUPP, KICP Highlight
- COUPP experiment tightens limits on dark matter, Fermilab Press Release
- A COUPP in the making, KICP Highlight
Talks, Lectures, & Workshops - KICP Workshop, Workshop: The Magnificent CEvNS (organizer)
- PhD Thesis Defense, Bjorn Scholz, "First Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering" (PhD advisor)
- KICP Seminar, News from PICO and COHERENT
- PhD Thesis Defense, Asher Berlin, "Phenomenology of Particle Dark Matter"
- KICP Workshop, Calibration of low energy particle detectors (organizer)
- PhD Thesis Defense, Alan Robinson, "Dark Matter Limits from a 2L C3F8 Filled Bubble Chamber" (PhD advisor)
- KICP Event, Cosmosis Conversations: "The Artist and Scientist: Understanding Our Universe and Place Within featuring Jeremy Bolen & Juan Collar"
- PhD Thesis Defense, Nicole Fields, "CosI: Development of a Low Threshold Detector for the Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering" (PhD advisor)
- Talk, Computations in Science Seminar: Juan Collar, University of Chicago, "Uncertainties in dark matter searches"
- KICP Yerkes Institute, Transforming Energy, Yerkes Winter Institute
- KICP Workshop, Dark Matter Hub Meeting
- KICP Yerkes Institute, Vision, Yerkes Winter Institute (instructor)
- KICP Seminar, Direct Detection of WIMP dark matter: the nitty-gritty
- KICP Cosmology Course, "Dark Matters", Short Course for Museum & Planetarium Staff (course director)
- KICP Yerkes Institute, Making & Breaking: Destructive Testing , Yerkes Summer Institute (instructor)
- KICP Workshop, 9th International Conference "Identification of Dark Matter" (organizer)
- KICP Summer School, Summer School: Dark Matter Detectors (organizer)
- PhD Thesis Defense, Christopher Kelso: "Recent Results in Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments"
- KICP Workshop, Chicagoland and Midwest Dark Matter Workshop (organizer)
- KICP Workshop, PFC3 Collaboration Meeting
- KICP Talk, Juan Collar, Rocky Kolb, and Carlos Wagner, "Chicago's Dark Matter: WIMPs of the Underground"
- PhD Thesis Defense, Matthew Szydagis, "Dark Matter Limits from a 15 kg Windowless Bubble Chamber" (PhD advisor)
- KICP Cosmology Course, "The Dark Universe", Cosmology Short Course (course instructor)
- KICP Seminar, Light WIMPs, the Plot Thickens?
- KICP Lecture, SAIC Lecture: Juan Collar, "Searching for Dark Matter in the Sewers of Chicago"
- PhD Thesis Defense, Phil Barbeau, "Neutrino and astroparticle physics with P-type point contact high purity germanium detectors" (PhD advisor)
- KICP Talk, Cafe Scientifique: Juan Collar, "Searching for Cosmic Dark Matter in the Sewers of Chicago"
- KICP Workshop, Cosmic Cartography Journey Through the Universe
- KICP Workshop, New Views of the Universe, Kavli Institute Inaugural Symposium in memory of David Schramm (organizer)
- KICP Cosmology Course, "Big Bang & Beyond, 21st Century Cosmology", Cosmology Short Course (course instructor)
- KICP Cosmology Course, "Origin of Structure in the Universe", Cosmology Short Course (course instructor)
- KICP Yerkes Institute, Scaling Up, Yerkes Winter Institute (instructor)
Students Past StudentsGRADUATE: Alexander Kavner (2021), Bjorn Scholz (2017), Alan Robinson (2015), Nicole Fields (2015), Drew Fustin (2012), Matthew Szydagis (2010), Phil Barbeau (2009), Nathan Riley (2008), Dante Nakazawa (2006) UNDERGRADUATE: Kevin Baker (2014), William Tahoe Schrader (2014), Vivek Sarma (2014), Berk Diler (2014), Alan Salkanovic (2013), Eli Byers Barrows (2012), Natalie Harrison (2012), Songkiat Nutalaya (2012), Steven Bogacz (2012), Muneeb Hai (2010), Hannes Schimmelpfennig (2009), Jacob Claussen (2008), Adrian Culver (2008), Luke Goetzke (2008), Charles Greenberg (2008), Keith Crum (2007), Smriti Mishra (2007), Julia Rasmussen (2006), Kevin O'Sullivan (2005), Aza Raskin (2005), Taylor Aune (2004) Currently in Committees - Wednesday Colloquium committee
KICP Publications 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001Latest Journal Publications - "First Constraint on Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering in Argon", arXiv:1909.05913 (Sep 2019)
- "Response of CsI[Na] to nuclear recoils: Impact on coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering", Physical Review D, Volume 100, Issue 3, id.033003 (Aug 2019)
- "Dark matter search results from the complete exposure of the PICO-60 C3F8 bubble chamber", Physical Review D, Volume 100, Issue 2, id.022001 (Jul 2019)
- "Response of CsI[Na] to Nuclear Recoils: Impact on Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CE$
u$NS)", arXiv:1907.04828 (Jul 2019) - "Velocity independent constraints on spin-dependent DM-nucleon interactions from IceCube and PICO", arXiv:1907.12509 (Jul 2019)
- "Data-Driven Modeling of Electron Recoil Nucleation in PICO C$_3$F$_8$ Bubble Chambers", arXiv:1905.12522 (May 2019)
- "Developing a Bubble Chamber Particle Discriminator Using Semi-Supervised Learning", arXiv:1811.11308 (Nov 2018)
- "Liquid scintillator response to proton recoils in the 10-100 keV range", Physical Review C, Volume 98, Issue 4, id.045802 (Oct 2018)
- "Search for a nonrelativistic component in the spectrum of cosmic rays at Earth", Physical Review D, Volume 98, Issue 2, id.023005 (Jul 2018)
- "COHERENT Collaboration data release from the first observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering", arXiv:1804.09459 (Apr 2018)
- "COHERENT 2018 at the Spallation Neutron Source", arXiv:1803.09183 (Mar 2018)
- "Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering", arXiv:1708.01294 (Aug 2017)
- "Dark Matter Search Results from the PICO -60 C 3F8 Bubble Chamber", Physical Review Letters, Volume 118, Issue 25, id.251301 (Jun 2017)
- "New CAST limit on the axion-photon interaction", Nature Physics, Volume 13, Issue 6, pp. 584-590 (2017) (Jun 2017)
- "Measurement of the low-energy quenching factor in germanium using an 88Y/Be photoneutron source", Physical Review D, Volume 94, Issue 12, id.122003 (Dec 2016)
- "A Low-Noise Germanium Ionization Spectrometer for Low-Background Science", IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 63, issue 6, pp. 2782-2792 (Dec 2016)
- "Dark matter search results from the PICO-60 CF3 I bubble chamber", Physical Review D, Volume 93, Issue 5, id.052014 (Mar 2016)
- "New solar axion search using the CERN Axion Solar Telescope with 4He filling", Physical Review D, Volume 92, Issue 2, id.021101 (Jul 2015)
- "Dark Matter Search Results from the PICO-2L C3F8 Bubble Chamber", Physical Review Letters, Volume 114, Issue 23, id.231302 (Jun 2015)
- "Coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering detection with a CsI[Na] scintillator at the SNS spallation source", Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A, Volume 773, p. 56-65 (Feb 2015)
Latest Conference Proceedings - "A search for WIMPs with the CoGeNT public dataset", APS April Meeting 2016, abstract id. D1.034 (Mar 2016)
- "Monte Carlo studies of the CoGeNT detector for a variety of dark matter candidates", APS April Meeting 2015, abstract id. T1.029 (Apr 2015)
- "A search for WIMPs and tests of local dark matter velocity distributions with the CoGeNT public dataset", APS April Meeting 2014, abstract #R12.008 (Mar 2014)
- "CosI: Coherent Neutrino Scattering with Cesium Iodide", APS April Meeting 2014, abstract #J7.009 (Mar 2014)
- "A measurement of the K-shell decays in the CoGeNT public dataset", American Physical Society, APS April Meeting 2013, April 13-16, 2013, abstract #E2.021 (Apr 2013)
- "The MAJORANA experiment: an ultra-low background search for neutrinoless double-beta decay", Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Volume 381, Issue 1, article id. 012044, 6 pp. (2012) (Sep 2012)
- "The Majorana Demonstrator: A Search for Neutrinoless Double-beta Decay of Germanium-76", Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Volume 375, Issue 4, id. 042010 (2012) (Jul 2012)
- "Dark matter sensitivities of the Majorana Demonstrator", Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Volume 375, Issue 1, id. 012014 (2012) (Jul 2012)
- "Status and perspectives of the CAST experiment", Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Volume 375, Issue 2, id. 022001 (2012) (Jul 2012)
- "The Majorana Demonstrator: A search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of germanium-76", 19TH PARTICLES AND NUCLEI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE (PANIC11). AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 1441, pp. 480-482 (2012) (Apr 2012)
Visitors Past Visitors: - Laura Newburgh, Yale University (2019)
- Brian Nord, Fermilab and UChicago (2019)
- Andrew Sonnenschein, Fermilab (2016)
- Miguel Ardid, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (2014)
- Dipak Rimal, University of Florida (2014)
- Manuel Bou, Polytechnic University of Valencia (2012)
- Alvaro Chavarria, Princeton University (2012)
- Rafael Lang, Purdue University (2012)
- María Luisa Sarsa, University of Zaragoza (2012)
- Miguel Ardid, Universitat Politècnica de València (2011)
- Manuel Bou, UPV - IGIC (2011)
- Todd Hossbach, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2011)
- Paolo Gondolo, University of Utah (2010)
- Sam Waldman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2010)
- Juan Gomez-Cadenas, IFIC (CSIC-UV) SPAIN (2009)
- Carl Dahl, Princeton University (2008)
- Richard Gaitskell, Brown University (2007)
- Andrea Pocar, Stanford University (2007)
- William Wester, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (2007)
- Silvia Borghi, CERN (2006)
- Dan Akerib, Case Western Reserve University (2004)
- Frank Avignone, University of South Carolina (2003)
- Robynne Hooper, University of Texas, Austin (2003)
- Peter Gorham, University of Hawaii (2002)
- Harry Miley, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2002)
- Andre Sonnenschein, Princeton University (2002)
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