The main public actions of the consortium AntiMatter-OTech are summarised below and this information is regularly updated.
The consortium leadership consists of a dedicated team of PIs (Principal Investigators), one per participating institution. This is also the contact point for the project. Our scientific leading team is:
- IJCLab (CNRS / Université Paris Saclay; Orsay, France) — Anatael Cabrera*
- CIEMAT (Madrid, Spain) — Carmen Palomares
- EDF (DPNT Lyon/Chooz, France) — Nelly Castry
- Johannes Gutenberg-Universität (Mainz, Germany) — Alfons Weber
- Subatech (CNRS / Nantes Université; Nantes, France) — Frederic Yermia
- University of Sussex (Brighton, UK) — Jeff Hartnell
The CNRS-based project coordination* is supported by the technical coordinator (Christian Bourgeois) and the project manager (Kalyn Burns).
Main Consortium Actions
As part of the AntiMatter-OTech project, the consortium is preparing several activities in parallel for eventual antineutrino data-taking at the UND site, located at the Chooz nuclear reactor plant (Chooz, France). Beyond the governance and management of the project itself, the main activities in this early stage of the project are
a) the communication and dissemination,
b) the preparation of the experimental sites, and
c) the construction of the novel LiquidO-based neutrino detector.
The latter effort implies several developments, including new technology, such as novel optical fibres and exploring new opaque scintillator formulations. Some of those developments occur in tight collaboration with the rest of the LiquidO collaboration, thus benefiting both communities mutually. As part of the construction of the AntiMatter-OTech detector, all actions addressing the detector and physics simulation and the needed data analyses, including eventual antineutrino data.
The AntiMatter-OTech consortium & CLOUD collaboration
The AntiMatter-OTech international consortium has been reinforced by the CLOUD international collaboration, where the latter explores all possible fundamental neutrino science opportunities in the same experimental configuration setup pioneered by the AntiMatter-OTech project, otherwise mainly focused on the reactor monitoring capabilities and possible innovation. Both AntiMatter-OTech and CLOUD viewpoints are highly complementary and synergetic. Thus, both teams of scientists and engineers work alongside each other on many topics in tight collaboration and cooperation.
Consortium Meetings
So far, the AntiMatter-OTech have had three (3) consortium meetings:
- December 2022: Consortium & Kickoff Meeting. CIEMAT (Madrid, Spain).
- May 2023: Consortium Meeting. Sussex University (Brighton, UK).
- October 2023: Consortium Meeting. IJCLab / Université Paris-Saclay (Orsay, France).
In 2024, two consortium meetings are foreseen: one in June (Lisbon, Portugal) and one in October (Mainz, Germany). The final dates are under the final tuning. Several dedicated topical workshops are organised between collaboration meetings to address the most important technical topics, including topical reviews.
There are joint sessions between our consortium and the CLOUD collaboration during our meetings, organised simultaneously. Also, a strong correlation exists with the LiquidO collaboration since all members of AntiMatter-OTech and CLOUD are LiquidO experts and collaborators.