Prof Alfons Weber

I hold a joint professorship at the University of Mainz and Fermilab and am a visiting professor at the University of Oxford. My main research interest is in neutrino physics, but I am also active in developing electronics and novel detectors.

Fun facts:

Research

I started my career in physics doing a diploma thesis in phenomenology, looking into novel way of detecting relict neutrinos from the big bang, or solar and accelerator neutrinos. After this more theoretical start at the RWTH-Aachen, I switched to experimental physics and did my Ph.D. and first post-doc at the L3 experiment at the LEP collider at CERN. I searched for new particles (but didn't find any) and made precision measurements of the W-boson mass.

I returned to neutrino, when I came to Oxford in 1999. I started to lead the Oxford MINOSgroup, who looks into the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations at Fermilab. We made a precision measurements using muon neutrinos from the NuMI beam line. More information can be found at the Fermilab MINOS page.

Later I joint the T2K experiment in Japan, which looks for electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam. We were awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the measurement of neutrino oscillations and even found the first indication that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos don't oscillate in the same way. This process may eventually hold the key to understand why there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe. We need a new generation of experiments to really unlock the secret of the neutrino.

The DUNE Experiment is exact this. This very long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment is located in a neutrino beam that goes from Fermilab for 1300 km to the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). The DUNE far detector will consist of 70,000 tons of liquid argon and will have an unprecedented sensitivity to measure neutrino oscillation. Its main aim is not only to study the matter anti-matter asymmetry, but to look for neutrino from supernova explosions or for the decay of the proton. I was the UK PI of the project and also leading a team to design the near detector, which is an essential component of the experiment to study the neutrino beam composition and the details of the neutrino interactions. I am the chair of the Institute Board of the International DUNE Collaboration.

I have also developed a novel detector for neutrino and neutron detection. These activities lead to the creation of the SoLid experiment, which searches for sterile neutrinos at the research reactor BR2 in Mol, Belgium.

Committees

I was serving on the STFC Science Board that provides advice to STFC Council and the executive on all aspects of STFC's science and technology programme.

I was on the Executive Committee of the MINOS and NOvA Experiments and was the chair of the institutional board and a member of the Executive Committee of the LAGUNA-LBNO design study. I am now the chair of DUNE's Institute board.

I am a member of the LHCC advising the CERN management on the LHC experiments concentrating on CMS and the WLCG. I also serve on the HyperK PAC advising the University of Tokio and KEK in Japan on the progress of the HyperK Experiment.

Master Thesis

Please get in contact with me, if you are interested in master thesis in my area of research. There are many options how you can make a difference in our research. One topic is listed below.