Ray Davis colleague to speak at Deadwood Gulch Convention Center
Ray Davis colleague to speak at Deadwood Gulch Convention Center
In 1965, Dr. Ray Davis began building his solar neutrino experiment deep in the Homestake Mine. Researchers and graduate students from across the country worked with Davis; some even built their own research experiments near the tank. Mike Cherry was one of those researchers.
On Thursday, April 16, Cherry, the Roy P. Daniels Professor of Physics at Louisiana State University, will talk about his experiences at Homestake at the Deadwood Gulch Convention Center. His talk will follow the Lead Deadwood Community Fund?s Chili Feed, which runs from 5 to 7 p.m. The Chile Feed is $6 for all you can sample; Dr. Cherry?s presentation is free to the public. The event is a joint mixer for the Lead and Deadwood Chambers of Commerce.
?As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Ray Davis? Nobel Prize work at Homestake, we?re honored to host Dr. Michael Cherry and hear about his experiences working deep underground,? said Mike Headley, executive director of the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority. ?Not only did he work with on one of the world?s most significant neutrino experiments, he designed his own experiments and continues working in cutting-edge research today.?
Cherry worked with Davis from 1980 to 1988. At the time he was an assistant professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked with Davis on the neutrino experiment but mostly focused on researching ?very energetic cosmic rays.?
Central to his research was the Large Area Scintillation Detector (LASD)?200 one-foot square plastic pipes welded together and stacked around Davis? tank. Each box contained ultra pure mineral oil (about 6,000 gallons all together) and had sensitive light detectors on each end. In conjunction with an array of air shower detectors on the surface, Cherry hoped to draw a line between events on the surface and underground.
In a letter to then-Safety Director Norm Bakke, Cherry said, ?The line points back into the sky toward the source. We now have a one-mile long cosmic ray telescope with which we can hope to learn the source of these rare, very energetic cosmic events.?
Today, Cherry?s research focuses on Terrestrial Gamma Flashes (TGFs) and the CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET). TGFs are intense bursts of gamma rays and high energy x-rays associated with lightning. It could help scientists better understand the electron current?s role in thunderstorms. Two TGF detector arrays are being built in the Caribbean, where thunderstorm activity is high.
Scientists working with CALET are trying to measure the intensity of very high-energy cosmic ray electrons and nuclei to search for dark matter and cosmic gamma ray bursts. The instrument, built by a Japanese-Italian-U.S. collaboration, will be launched to the International Space Station later this year.
Cherry hasn?t been back to Lead, S.D., since he left in 1988. ?It looks like the facility has been upgraded in a major way since I was there last. I?m looking forward to going underground and seeing the new space and experiments.?
To contact Dr. Cherry for an interview, call 225-578-2262 or email him at cherry@phunds.phys.lsu.edu