Prof. Bryce Littlejohn, IIT

Liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) detectors have become the global technology of choice for performing neutrino flavor oscillation measurements with accelerator neutrino beams.  The millimeter-precision 3D images these detectors produce contain meters-long tracks and showers generated by neutrino interaction products, as well as mm-scale blips generated by isolated MeV-scale energy depositions.  While GeV track and shower features have been extensively leveraged for oscillation and neutrino-nucleus cross-section measurements, MeV-scale blip features are comparatively under-studied, despite their ability to uniquely access a range of physics and astrophysics signatures.  In this talk, I will overview the physics benefits of MeV-scale reconstruction in neutrino LArTPCs, including solar and supernova neutrino burst detection, improved particle identification and hadronic calorimetry for beam neutrino measurements, and more.  I will also present work performed by the LArTPC-focused Littlejohn Neutrino research Group experiment at IIT that has created new low-energy LArTPC reconstruction tools, demonstrated new MeV-scale LArTPC physics capabilities, and performed new particle physics measurements relying on these new techniques.