Welcome to the Brunner Neutrino Lab (BνL)

Our group focuses on determining the nature of the neutrino, i.e., whether neutrino and anti-neutrino are in fact the same particle, by searching for neutrinoless double-beta decays (0νββ) in the isotope ¹³⁶Xe. We are currently taking data with our EXO-200 detector, which is located about 650 m below the surface in the WIPP mine in south-east New Mexico, USA. So far, we could only report results of one of the most sensitive searches for 0νββ but have not observed a positive signal yet. In order to greatly improve the sensitivity of our measurement, the collaboration started developing a next-generation detector, called nEXO. This detector will contain 5 tonnes of liquid Xe and is anticipated to be located at the SNOLAB underground laboratory in Sudbury, Ontario.

The McGill group supports operation of EXO-200 and is involved in data analysis. For the nEXO project, we are developing vacuum ultra-violet light sources and are working on integrating photon detectors into larger area tiles. In addition, we are developing a technique to extract ¹³⁶Ba ions from xenon gas. This so-called Ba-tagging technique will allow an unambiguous identification of events as true ββ decays once a 0νββ signal has been observed.

Brunner Neutrino Lab Github

The Brunner group develops various projects for its lab and the experiments it performs. Some of the projects and software are made public as they have wide applicability and could benefit others working in labs. The list of projects currently hosted on the BνL github is:

• Lab Environmental Monitor: This project records environmental variables from various sensors such as a particulate counter or pressure differential sensor.

The link to the BνL github is available here.

If you are interested in joining the exciting search for the nature of neutrinos, then contact me ( ).

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News

• August 2026

  Congratulations to Justine and Cameron for coming in 2nd and 4th at CASST 2026 with their presentations!
  Here is Justine's presentation on Optimizing light ion ablation, transport and filtering and Cameron's presentation on Building a Peltier-Cooled Cloud Chamber for Physics Outreach.
  Here is a short clip of Cameron's cloud chamber at work with a test source.
  
  
  Congratulations to Hussain for winning 2nd place for Best Poster Prize at Nuclear Structure 2026!
  Congratulations to Hussain Rasiwala for winning second place for his poster on The Key to a Background-Free Search in Liquid Xenon Ba-Tagging — Status and Prospects .
  

• June 2026

  Congratulations to Regan for winning first place for the Best Student Talk in the Division of Nuclear Physics at CAP 2026 and 3rd place overall!
  Here is Regan's talk on Xenon Recovery from Used Nuclear Fuel for Fundamental Physics.
  

• May 2026

  Congratulations to Hussain for winning 3rd place for Best Poster Prize at XeSAT!
  Congratulations to Hussain Rasiwala for winning third place for his poster on The Key to a Background-Free Search in Liquid Xenon Ba-Tagging — Status and Prospects .
  Congratulations to Regan for receiving the Graduate Student Exchange Award from the McDonald Institute for his Simulation Studies of the Sensitivity of XLZD to Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay!
  
  Welcome to Justine Thebault Weiser, Cameron Flaman and welcome back to Will Gray who will be working at the BνL as undergrads for Summer 2026.

• February 2026

  Congratulations to Regan for receiving the Globalink Research Award from MITACS for his work on Simulation Studies of a Future Xenon Rare Event Search Experiment!
  
  Congratulations to Samin and Riya for winning the second and third best presentation award respectively, at WNPPC 2026!
  Here is Samin's presentation on DORY - An Optical Module in the nEXO Outer Detector Monitoring & Calibration System and Riya's presentation on Vacuum UV Stability Measurements of SiPMs at Liquid Xenon Temperature.
  
  Congratulations to Will Gray for third place overall at the 10^th McGill Physics Hackathon!
  

• January 2026

  Congratulations to Samin for having her article published in the Physics in Canada magazine and for winning the McDonald Institute HQP (Highly Qualified Personnel) Excellence Award in Community Leadership at the PhD level!
  Samin's invited article on the Development of a Diffuser Ball to Monitor the Water-Cherenkov Muon Veto System in nEXO has been published in the 2025 issue of PiC.
  
  Welcome to Will Gray and David Paz who will be working at the BνL as undergrads for the Winter 2026 semester

• October 2025

  Three members of the Brunner group won awards for their academic success! Congratulation to Riya, Samin and Simon for winning the physics department Graduate Excellence Award!

• September 2025

  Welcome to Ethan Coulthard, Amelia Remnant, Alex Todd and Eleanor Allen, all new MSc students at the Brunner Neutrino Lab!

• August 2025

  Congratulation to Ethan for winning the First place at CASST 2025 for his presentation on the Characterization of Hafnium for LoLX!
  Ethan Coulthard's presentation on Hafnium Characterization for use in LoLX wins First place at CASST 2025 and receives an honorable mention at the McGill Physics Summer Undergraduate Research Showcase.

• June 2025

  Congratulation to David for winning the 2024 Department of Physics Community Building Award!
  Congrats to David Gallacher on being awarded the 2024 Department of Physics Community Building Award for his work in restructuring and revitalizing MGAPS.
  
  Samin wins the second overall poster prize and first place in the CAP Applied Physics and Instrumentation division!
  Congratulations to Samin Majidi for winning first place in the CAP Applied Physics and Instrumentation division and the Second place overall at CAP for her poster on the development of a system to monitor the PMT performance and the water quality in nEXO's water Cherenkov muon veto. .

• May 2025

  Welcome to the Summer 2025 Students
  Welcome to Jasmine Boyd, Alfredo Sosa Morenoo, Ethan Coulthard and Marharyta Sulaieva; the undergraduate students who will be working at the BνL for the Summer of 2025.

• Jan 2025

  Simon Lavoie joins the group for his MSc!
  Welcome back to Simon who joins the group again, this time as a Master's student!

• December 2024

  Lisa completed her MSc!
  Congratulations to Lisa Rudolph for completing her Master's Degree. Best wishes for her future career!

• October 2024

  Lucas defended his Dissertation!
  Congratulations to Lucas Darroch for defending his PhD Dissertation on October 17^th!

• August 2024

  Riya Rai joins the group as a PhD Student!
  We welcome Riya back to the group who joins us again after a short while, this time as a PhD student!

• July 2024

  David wins the Alexander Mcfee Memorial Fellowship!
  Congratulations to David Gallacher for winning the Alexander Mcfee Memorial Fellowship for his research on SiPM Characterization and Optical Simulations in Liquid Xenon!
  
  nEXO 3D Scale Model Creation!
  The undergraduate students at the Brunner Neutrino Lab have created a new nEXO 3D Scale Model, now with different LEDs for the different decay and background types! Massive thanks to Hannah Sousa-Fronenberg for editing the video for the creation process which you can watch below or alternatively click here to be redirected to its youtube link.
  
  
  

• April 2024

  Zach defended his Dissertation!
  Congratulations to Zachary Hockenbery for defending his PhD Dissertation on April 2^nd!
  
  Soud wins the CAP PPD Thesis Prize !
  Congratulations to Soud Al Kharusi for winning the CAP PPD Thesis Prize for his PhD Dissertation!

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