Building an Injector to Produce the Target for the IsoDAR Neutrino Experiment

The Isotope Decay At Rest (IsoDAR) experiment is a novel new neutrino experiment which will bring a cyclotron deep underground next to a large liquid scintillator detector in order to make short baseline measurements of neutrino oscillations to search for sterile neutrinos. A key component of the experiment is the antineutrino source, which will be made up of a beryllium-9 target surrounded by a sleeve made of a homogeneous mixture of lithium-7 and beryllium-9. To produce this lithium-beryllium mixture, an injector is under construction to inject molten lithium into beryllium chips and powder at 2500 psi. However, there are still important design elements that need to be considered for the subsystems that will allow the injector to function. Along with making progress in building the injector, I have contributed to the design of the heating system and troubleshooting the actuator system.