Adrian Thompson
Postdoctoral Scholar, Northwestern University
Postdoctoral Scholar, Northwestern University
I work on particle phenomenology in a number of areas, mostly related to questions about dark matter, axions, and the nature of the neutrino masses. I enjoy collaborating with many experimentalists and theorists alike, and have tried to show the potential of neutrino beam experiments to probe hidden sectors beyond the Standard Model. Lately I have been interested in primordial black hole formation mechanisms and what their parameter space can tell us about other puzzles like the neutrino masses.
PhD Physics, Texas A&M University
B.A. in Mathematics, B.S. in Physics, UC Santa Cruz
We study a toy model of Baryogenesis with color-charged scalars and a Majorana fermion and see how binary pulsars - systems comprised of a neutron star and a white dwarf or neutron star companion - can constrain such models. We find that this model allows for hyperon decays into a photon and the Majorana fermion, which can subsequently scatter into pions leading to a significant mass loss in the star. If the hyperons are indeed present in the neutron star equation of state, this decay and scattering process is strongly constrained by the observed rate of orbital period decay in the binary pulsars.
Charged meson decays in accelerator-based experiments can enhance sensitivity to new physics by avoiding helicity suppression, making them effective probes for dark-sector signals. This mechanism provides a plausible explanation for the MiniBooNE low-energy excess and predicts testable parameter values consistent with existing limits in current and future neutrino experiments.
Axions with dimension-5 couplings to photons can undergo coherent Primakoff scattering in crystals, but absorption effects significantly suppress the event rate, requiring corrections often overlooked in solar axion searches. By incorporating absorption effects and exploring the Borrmann effect, we refine sensitivity projections for experiments like SuperCDMS, LEGEND, and SABRE, highlighting strategies to enhance solar axion discovery potential.
Neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI) can span a high-dimensional parameter space with degeneracies that require combining data from diverse experiments to constrain. By integrating scattering data from Borexino, COHERENT, and future detectors with oscillation measurements at DUNE, this analysis improves constraints on electron and quark NSI parameters by up to a factor of 2–3 using a novel copula method for posterior combination.
eXdb: A Particle Physics Experiments Database
Runge-Kutta transport of Charged Mesons through Magnetic Focusing Horns
Axion-Like Particles: Simulated Spectra from Fixed Target, Reactor, and Solar Fluxes
Byckling, Kajantie, Particle Kinematics
Notes on SU(2) Reps and Neutrino Mass Models (TASI 2020)
Some (unfinished) notes on Chi^2, Pseudoexperiments, and Confidence Levels
Email: a.thompson@northwestern.edu
