Mariam Rifai M.Sc.

Mariam Rifai M.Sc.
  • September 2024 - Present (Scientific researcher at GSI)
  • September 2020 - 2025 (PhD student)
  • Thesis Title: Probing atmospheric neutrino oscillations with the JUNO liquid scintillator detector.
  • Co-supervisor: Prof. Xianguo Lu, Warwick university

Contact:
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JUNO

  • The main focus of my PhD thesis was on atmospheric neutrinos, including sensitivity studies to evaluate their contribution to enhancing JUNO's overall sensitivity to the neutrino mass ordering. Following the start of data taking, the collaboration's efforts naturally shifted toward the analysis of reactor neutrino data for the first physics publications in Nov 2025, and my work has since been primarily dedicated to reactor data analysis.

Contributions to the reactor oscillation analysis in JUNO

  • Muon and cosmogenic backgrounds
    • Study spallation neutrons for detector response and detector stability.
    • Study early and late afterpulse features.
    • Study fast neutron backgrounds.
    • Analyze atmospheric neutral current (NC) background contributions in the reactor neutrino spectrum.
  • Accidental backgrounds - improving the IBD selection near the edge of the detector
  • JUNO reactor fitter (NODA)
    • Initially developed in the GSI group by Y. Malyshkin and further developed by C. Morales.
    • Updating the implementation of the detector response model for the reactor analysis.
    • Ongoing implementation of a combined fit with Daya Bay.
    • Toy MC/Asimov sensitivity studies to fine-tune IBD selection cuts.

Contributions to atmospheric neutrino analysis in JUNO

  • Event reconstruction: energy and directionality in JUNO's liquid scintillator detector
    • Adapt and apply the topological track reconstruction method to JUNO for atmospheric neutrinos.
    • Methodology: reconstructing the spatial and temporal distribution of light emission probabilities from secondaries interactions. This is based on B.S. Wonsak et al., 2018 (JINST 13 P0700).
    • Collaboration with Marta Colomer Molla from the Brussel group.
  • Generator: GIBUU - transport model (Germany Based) - Direct communications with authors, tasks are guided by Prof. Xianguo Lu
    • Implement GiBUU generator in the official JUNO software.
    • Implement a 3D atmospheric flux interface for GiBUU.
    • Validate the physics of the model based on the transverse kinematic imbalance (TKI) variables, using MINERvA data.
    • Build an atmospheric spectrum model for JUNO with GiBUU.
    • Study the impact of the GiBUU 2pi-background model on JUNO and compare it to other generator models, such as GENIE.
  • Researching JUNO's sensitivity to atmospheric neutrinos
    • Statistical Analysis: Develop a fitter and evaluate the systematic uncertainties on the cross-section.
    • Collaboration with Amina Khatun from Bratislava group

Reconstruction software of JUNO

  • Improve the resolution of MeV events by handling the dark noise and optimizing the selection of the DAQ window

Publications

Proceeding

Talks

  • The 26th JUNO collaboration meeting> - July 24-31, 2025 - Donggguan & kaiping, China
    Talk: Atmospheric neutrino sensitivty study in GSI
  • International Workshop on Multi-messenger Tomography of the Earth - July 4-7,2023 -Paris, France
    Invited talk: JUNO's Prospects for atmospheric neutrinos
  • 34th Rencontres de Blois on paricles physics and cosmology - May 14-19,2023 -Blois, France
    Parallel talk: Exploring neutrinos with the JUNO experiment: from MeV to GeV energy scale with unprecedented precision
  • DPG Spring Meeting 2023 - 20-24 March, 2023 -Dresden, Germany
    Parallel talk: Atmospheric neutrinos reconstruction for the neutrino mass ordering measurement of JUNO.
  • IKP seminar: "Future prospects for Neutrino Mass Ordering measurement with atmospheric neutrinos in JUNO" -June 13, 2022 -Juelich,Germany
  • DPG-Spring meeting - March 21-25,2022 (Online) - heidelberg,Germany
    Parallel talk: Event reconstruction for the neutrino mass ordering measurement of JUNO.
  • DPG-Spring meeting - March 15-19,2021 (Online) - Dortmund,Germany
    Parallel talk: Reconstruction of atmospheric neutrino events with JUNO, M.Rifai et al., atmospheric neutrinos reconstutcion.

Posters

  • Neutrino 2024 - June 16 - 22 - Milano, Italy
    A.Khatun and M.Rifai - Exploring atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters
  • Matter and Universe 2023 day - September 14th-15th - KIT, Germany
    M.Rifai - JUNO NMO’s sensitivity
  • Physics in Collision 2022, PIC conference - Sept 5th-9th, 2022 -Tbilisi, Georgia
    M.Rifai -Physics Prospects of the JUNO Experiment, Poster.
  • The XXX International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics(Neutrino 2022) - May 30-June 4, 2022 -Seoul, South Korea
    M.Rifai -Atmospheric neutrino physics in JUNO: reconstruction of GeV interactions, Reconstruction of GeV interaction.
    Selected as the best poster in its category.

Summer schools

  • INFN School of Statistics 2022 - May 15–20,2022 -Paestum, Italy
  • The 1st INFN International School on Underground Physics (SoUP 2021), Virtual: 28 June - 2 July, 2021
    Poster: Reconstruction of atmospheric neutrinos in JUNO

Education

  • M.Sc. in Subatomic and Astroparticle Physics
    Strasbourg University
    Master Thesis: Testing the NMO with the JUNO detector via atmospheric and reactor neutrinos.

  • B.Sc. in Physics
    Lebanese University

Further publications: