LiquidO: Imaging the Invisible in the Darkness of Opacity

by Dr Anatael Cabrera (CNRS-IN2P3 / Université Paris-Saclay)

Tuesday 27 May 2025, 15:00 → 16:00 Europe/Madrid

C7b-0-058 - Seminar (IFAE Main Building C7b)

For several decades, radiation detection has been vital to humankind, forming the experimental foundation of much of our understanding of the Universe. Most light-based detection technologies, such as scintillation and Cherenkov radiation, rely on a fundamental principle: the medium’s impeccable transparency, enabling detection with only a handful of photons. This requirement becomes especially critical in large instrumented volumes, such as those used in neutrino physics. While these technologies have achieved significant success, including Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, they are constrained by notable limitations, even in their mature form. In particular, event-wise particle identification is rare and often impractical. As a result, experiments rely on cumbersome and costly shielding, such as deep underground laboratories, to mitigate overwhelming cosmic-ray backgrounds.

In this seminar, I will introduce the innovative LiquidO technology, which uniquely utilises light detection in opaque media, and has also pioneered the notion of opaque scintillation. LiquidO enables event-wise imaging of subatomic particles, allowing event topology and fast timing to facilitate particle identification even at energies as low as a fraction of an MeV. I will conclude with highlights on prospects for LiquidO-based experiments in MeV and GeV physics potential.