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The workshop is hybrid, the venue of the workshop is the Advanced Photon Center (building 402, see the map here) in Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, USA.
Note: We kindly ask all plenary session speakers and poster presenters to attend the conference in person.
NuFact 2024 is the 25th in the series of yearly international workshops which started in 1999 and which had previously been called the International Workshop on Neutrino Factories. The change of name to International Workshop on Neutrinos from Accelerators is related to the fact that the workshop program has, over the years, come to include all current and future accelerator and also reactor-based neutrino projects, including also muon projects, not only the Neutrino Factory project.
The main goal of the workshop is to review the progress of current and future facilities able to improve on measurements of the properties of neutral and charged lepton flavor violation, as well as search for new phenomena beyond the capabilities of presently planned experiments. The workshop is both interdisciplinary and interregional in that experimenters, theorists, and accelerator physicists from all over the world share expertise with the common goal of reviewing the results of currently operating experiments and designing the next generation of experiments.
The NuFact 2024 workshop is divided into seven Working Groups covering the following topics:
WG 1: Neutrino Oscillation Physics
WG 2: Neutrino Scattering Physics
WG 3: Accelerator Physics
WG 4: Muon Physics
WG 5: Neutrinos Beyond PMNS
WG 6: Detectors
WG 7: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Education, and Outreach
We revisit a method for determining the neutrino mass ordering by using precision measurements of the atmospheric $\Delta m^2$'s in both electron neutrino and muon neutrino disappearance channels, proposed by the authors in 2005~\cite{Nunokawa:2005nx}. The mass ordering is a very important outstanding question for our understanding of the elusive neutrino and determination of the mass ordering has consequences for other neutrino experiments. The JUNO reactor experiment will start data taking this year, and the precision of the atmospheric $\Delta m^2$'s from electron anti-neutrino measurements will improve by a factor of three from Daya Bay's 2.4\% to 0.8\% within a year. This measurement, when combined with the atmospheric $\Delta m^2$'s measurements from T2K and NOvA for muon neutrino disappearance, will contribute substantially to the $\Delta \chi^2$ between the two remaining neutrino mass orderings. In this paper we derive a mass ordering sum rule that can be used to address the possibility that JUNO's atmospheric $\Delta m^2$'s measurement, when combined with other experiments in particular T2K and NOvA, can determine the neutrino mass ordering at the 3 $\sigma$ confidence level within one year of operation. For a confidence level of 5 $\sigma$ in a single experiment we will have to wait until the middle of the next decade when the DUNE experiment is operating.
See arXiv:2404.08733
NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment consisting of two functionally identical tracking calorimeters, and a beam of neutrinos. The near detector is located at Fermilab, where it measures neutrinos coming from the 1 MW-capable NuMI beam. The beam can be run in neutrino or antineutrino mode, to produce a highly pure flux of muon (anti)neutrinos. The neutrinos then travel 810km north to the much larger far detector, where we measure them again after they have oscillated. By measuring the appearance of electron (anti)neutrinos and the disappearance of muon (anti)neutrinos relative to the unoscillated spectrum, we can make precise measurements of PMNS mixing matrix parameters, as well as the neutrino mass splitting $\Delta m^{2}_{32}$, and shed light on the remaining unknowns of mass ordering, $\delta_{CP}$, and the octant of $\theta_{23}$. In this talk we present the latest 3-flavor oscillation analysis results from 10 years of datataking on NOvA. This includes a nearly doubled neutrino-beam mode dataset, a new low-energy electron neutrino sample, and improvements to analysis techniques and systematics.
T2K is a long-baseline experiment for the measurement of neutrino and antineutrino oscillations. (Anti)neutrinos are produced by the J-PARC accelerator and measured at the ND280 near detector, and then at the Super-Kamiokande far-detector, in Kamioka. The most recent results of neutrino oscillations will be presented, featuring world-leading sensitivities on the search of Charge-Parity violation, by comparing oscillation measurements of neutrinos and antineutrinos. Measurements of the atmospheric parameters are extracted from the rate of muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance. The results include data collected with first Gd-loading at the far detector.
IceCube DeepCore is a subarray of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory that gives the detector sensitivity to GeV-scale atmospheric neutrinos by virtue of the closer spacing of its digital optical modules. With ten years of observation of GeV neutrinos over a range of long baselines, IceCube has placed competitive constraints on the atmospheric oscillation parameters $\sin^2(\theta_{23})$ and $\Delta m^2_{32}$ and on the sterile mixing matrix elements $|U_{\tau 4}|^2$ and $|U_{\mu 4}|^2$. Several additional analyses are underway that leverage DeepCore's atmospheric neutrino data. These include measurement of $\nu_\tau$ appearance and several analyses that use the effect of Earth's matter on neutrino oscillation, including measurement of the neutrino mass ordering, validation of the broad features of the preliminary reference Earth model (PREM), and measurements constraining additional physics beyond the Standard Model.
Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that measures oscillation parameters related to both $\nu_\mu(\bar{\nu}_\mu)$ disappearance and $\nu_e(\bar{\nu}_e)$ appearance in a $\nu_\mu(\bar{\nu}_\mu)$ beam. T2K uses Super-Kamiokande (SK) as its far detector, and SK detector systematic errors are currently among the leading sources of systematic uncertainty in the T2K oscillation analysis. Therefore, accurate understanding of detector mis-modelling and event reconstruction uncertainties in SK is crucial to the extraction of the neutrino oscillation parameters. The detector error estimation procedure quantifies uncertainties by fitting SK atmospheric MC to data in a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) framework. Uncertainties are separated based on true event topology above Cherenkov threshold in the SK atmospheric MC in order to capture how the uncertainties should affect the different signal and background samples when propagated to the T2K beam oscillation analysis. The procedure has been upgraded for the upcoming analysis cycle to include systematics targeting newly added $\nu_e$CC$1\pi^\pm$ and NC$\pi^0$-enhanced analysis samples, among other changes, culminating in a 540 dimensional MCMC fit between atmospheric MC and data in SK. The far detector analysis chain and its integration into the broader T2K oscillation analysis will be discussed in this talk.
I will discuss recent advances on the description of lepton-nucleus interactions in the energy region relevant for oscillation experiments. Various methods employing Quantum Monte Carlo techniques have been employed to derive the presented results.
The study of neutrino-nucleus scattering processes is important for the success of a new generation of neutrino experiments such as DUNE and T2K. Quasielastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, which yields a final state consisting of a nucleon and charged lepton, makes up a large part of the total neutrino cross-section in neutrino experiments. A significant source of uncertainty in the cross-section comes from limitations in our knowledge of nuclear effects in the scattering process.
The observations of short-range correlated proton-neutron pairs in exclusive electron scattering experiments led to the proposal of the Correlated Fermi Gas nuclear model. This model is characterized by a depleted Fermi gas region and a correlated high-momentum tail. We present an analytic implementation of this model for electron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus quasi-elastic scattering. Also, we compare separately the effects of
nuclear models and electromagnetic and axial form factors on electron and neutrino scattering cross-section data.
The hadronic responses and inclusive cross sections for lepton-nucleus scattering are computed within an independent-particle relativistic mean field model to describe the initial and final states, and one- and two-body current operators leading to the one-nucleon knockout reaction. The two-body currents produce an increase in the tranverse sector that improves the agreement with data, meanwhile the effect in the longitudinal part is hardly visible. The distortion of the outgoing nucleon, introducing the effect of final state interactions and the orthogonality between the initial and final states, is also significant to reproduce both the shape and magnitude of the cross section and responses.
We report on comparison of the predictions of neutrino event generators (run in electron scattering mode) to a recent global extraction of the 12C and 40Ca Longitudinal (RL) and Transverse (RT ) nuclear electromagnetic response functions from an analysis of all available electron scattering dats on carbon and calcium. The response functions are extracted for a large range of energy transfer ν, spanning the nuclear excitation, quasielastic, resonance and inelastic continuum over a large range of the square of the four-momentum transfer Q2. We extract RL and RT as a function of ν for both fixed values of Q2 (0 ≤ Q2 ≤ 3.5 GeV2), and also for fixed values of 3-momentum transfer q (0.1 ≤ q ≤ 3.75 GeV). The comparisons are made to the predictions of NuWRo (Neutrino WRoclaw event generator), ACHILLES (A CHIcago Land Lepton Event Simulator), GENIE (Generated Event Neutrino Interaction Experiments) and CFG (Correlated Fermi Gas).
(Presented by Giulia-Maria Bulugean at Nufact 2024, the 25th International Workshop on Neutrinos from Accelerators, September 16-21, 2024 Argonne National Lab, https://indico.fnal.gov/event/63406/ )
We present the combination of the SuSAv2 and dynamical coupled-channels (DCC) models. The DCC model, an approach to study baryon resonances through electron and neutrino induced meson production reactions, has been implemented for the first time in the SuSAv2-inelastic model to analyze the resonance region. The outcomes of these approaches are firstly benchmarked against (e, e') data on 12C. The description is thus extended to the study of neutrino-nucleus inclusive cross sections on 12C and 40Ar and compared with data from the T2K, MicroBooNE, NOvA, ArgoNEUT, and MINERvA experiments, thus covering a wide kinematical range.
The Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beamline at Fermilab generates an intense muon neutrino beam for the NOvA (NuMI Off-axis $\nu_e$ Appearance) long-baseline neutrino experiment. Over the years, the NuMI beamline has been pivotal in advancing neutrino physics, providing invaluable data and insights. This presentation offers updates and a comprehensive review of the lessons learned from the operation, maintenance, and monitoring of the NuMI beamline. Key topics include the optimization of beam performance, challenges in maintaining beamline stability, and proposed Machine Learning implementations to enhance monitoring. The talk aims to share best practices and provide a roadmap for future beamline projects, including the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF).
Beam-intercepting devices such as beam windows and particle-production targets are critical components of accelerator target facilities for High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments. The high-power, pulsed structure of the particle beams used for these experiments leads to thermal shock and high-cycle fatigue in addition to radiation damage resulting from the accumulated particle fluence. This can lead to degradation of the target system’s mechanical and thermal properties; considerably reducing their lifetimes and presenting substantial challenges to reliable operation of multi-MW class facilities. Recently several major accelerator facilities have been forced to operate at reduced power levels due to target survivability concerns. Furthermore, at Fermilab it is planned to increase the neutrino production beam power up to 2.4 MW in coming years. Therefore, timely R&D on the irradiated behavior of target system materials is critical to efficient operation of accelerator facilities and full utilization of recent accelerator power upgrades for HEP research. This talk will begin with an overview of high-power targetry, and the significant challenges presented by beam power increases expected for future HEP experiments. We will then cover several past materials irradiation studies that have been completed by the High-Power Targetry R&D group at Fermilab and its collaborators on common accelerator and target materials such as graphite, beryllium, titanium, and tungsten. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of two novel materials investigations under way within the group; high-entropy alloys for beam window applications, and electrospun nanofibers to serve as particle production targets.
The Muon Station for Science, Technology, and Industry (MELODY) will be the first muon source at the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) in China. In this presentation, we talk about the updated target station design including the target, shielding, proton beam dump and cooling. We also give details about our muon production target of copper, especially the AI optimization used for maximizing the surface muon production. Lastly, we summarize the design of the muon beamlines.
The Muon $g-2$ experiment at Fermilab is progressing towards its physics goal of measuring the muon anomalous magnetic moment with the unprecedented precision of 140 parts per billion. The experiment collected proposed statistics (number of detected decay positrons) and completed the scientific operation in June 2023. Two previous publications in 2021 and 2023 were based on the data taken in 2018 through 2020. The analysis of the largest dataset taken in 2021 through 2023 is underway, projecting the total uncertainty to be reduced to the target uncertainty. The experiment essentially measures the muon anomalous spin precession frequency (omega_a) and the proton Larmor frequency as a measure of the magnetic field. In this talk, we will walk through the overview of omega_a measurement and its key systematics. Then, we discuss the improvements made in later operations to understand better and reduce the systematic uncertainty on the measured omega_a.
In the Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab, the muon magnetic moment anomaly is measured by observing muon decays inside a magnetic storage ring, in order to test a potential discrepancy between past experiments and the Standard Model prediction. Precise knowledge of the magnetic field experienced by muons in the ring is necessary in order to reach the experiment’s unprecedented uncertainty goal of 140 ppb. Sets of nuclear magnetic resonance probes, recording the magnetic field through its impact on proton precession frequencies in their measurement samples, mapped and tracked the storage ring field during Muon g-2 operations. A series of calibration measurements were performed to correct for perturbations to the field imposed by the presence of the probes, relating their frequencies to those of a hypothetical shielded proton. The shielded-proton precession frequencies are averaged over the muon beam distribution in space and time, and corrected for additional transient fields measured by higher-bandwidth alternate probes, to provide the final magnetic-field input for the muon magnetic moment anomaly calculation. This presentation will provide an overview of the techniques used in Muon g-2’s magnetic field analysis, and how these techniques have evolved and improved over the course of the experiment.
The Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab is analyzing the final data set collected from 2021 to 2023. Our most recent measurement of the positive muon magnetic anomaly, published in 2023, reached a precision of 200 parts per billion (ppb) with a total systematic uncertainty of 70 ppb. To calculate the uncertainty of our final experimental value, we need to assess the systematic effects that arise from the dynamics of the muon beam as part of the analysis. This talk discusses the corrections to the anomalous precession frequency due to the impact of beam dynamics.
arXiv:2406.03975
The J-PARC muon g-2/EDM experiment aims to measure the muon magnetic moment anomaly ($a_μ$ = (g-2)/2) and to search for the muon electric dipole moment, with sensitivity comparable to the highest in the world. This will be achieved using a small-emittance muon beam, created by cooling muons to thermal energy at room temperature and accelerating them with a multi-stage linac. The small emittance can eliminate the strong focusing requirements for muon storage and the beam-momentum constraints associated with focusing. As a result, we can adopt a compact storage magnet with excellent field uniformity and full-tracking capability for detecting decay positrons. The experimental approach significantly differs from the previous measurements conducted in BNL E821 and Fermilab E989. As seen in the recent theoretical advancements in studying $a_μ$ through various approaches, the J-PARC measurement will enhance our experimental understanding of $a_μ$ and its deviation from theoretical predictions. The experiment, planned to begin commissioning in 2028, is currently progressing with the development and implementation of experimental instruments and facility construction. Notably, the first-stage acceleration of cooled muons has been successfully demonstrated at J-PARC. This talk will present the current status and future prospects of the experiment.
The data collected by the MicroBooNE detector, an 85-tonne active mass liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) at Fermilab, is ideally suited to search for physics beyond the standard model due to its excellent calorimetric, spatial, and energy resolution. We will present several recent results using data recorded with Fermilab’s two neutrino beams: a first search for dark-trident scattering in a neutrino beam, world-leading limits on heavy neutral lepton production, including the first limits in neutrino-neutral pion final states, and new constraints on Higgs portal scalar models. We also use off-beam data to develop tools for a neutrino-antineutron oscillation search in preparation for the DUNE experiment. The talk will also discuss the opportunities for future searches using MicroBooNE data.
New physics contributions to the (anti)neutrino-nucleon elastic scattering process can be constrained by precision measurements, with controlled Standard Model uncertainties. In a large class of new physics models, interactions involving charged leptons of different flavor can be related, and the large muon flavor component of accelerator neutrino beams can mitigate the lepton mass suppression that occurs in other low-energy measurements. We employ the recent high-statistics measurement of the cross section for $\bar{\nu}_\mu p \to \mu^+ n$ scattering on the hydrogen atom by MINERvA to place new confidence intervals on tensor and scalar neutrino-nucleon interactions: $\mathfrak{Re} C_T = -1^{+14}_{-13} \times 10^{-4}$, $|\mathfrak{Im} C_T| \le 1.3 \times 10^{-3}$, and $|\mathfrak{Im} C_S| = 45^{+13}_{-19} \times 10^{-3}$. These results represent a reduction in uncertainty by a factor of $2.1$, $3.1$, and $1.2$, respectively, compared to existing constraints from precision beta decay.
The MicroBooNE experiment features a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) within Fermilab's Booster Neutrino Beam. LArTPC technology distinguishes between electron and photon interactions, crucial for identifying the source of the long-standing anomalous excess reported by MiniBooNE. Initial MicroBooNE results have challenged the electron interpretation and achieved the world's most sensitive search for neutrino-induced single-photon production. This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of recent advancements and showcases new and improved analyses at MicroBooNE, offering a more model-independent probe of the photon sector. Additionally we will introduce a new direction of focused searches aimed at exploring "Beyond the Standard Model" scenarios, which involves investigating exotic e+e- pair production that could be attributed to neutrinos acting as a portal to a potential "Dark Sector" of new physics.
ICARUS is a liquid argon time projection chamber operating as the far detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program. The detector is located at Fermilab along the Booster Neutrino Beamline and off axis from the NuMI beamline. We present an analysis that utilizes the ICARUS neutrino detector in order to search for dimuon signals from long lived particles produced by kaons from the NuMI beamline. This is accomplished through a model independent analysis with additional model dependent treatments of heavy QCD axion and the Higgs portal scalar models. No significant excess is found and leading limits are set for both the Higgs Portal Scalar and heavy QCD axion models. As one of the first physics results from the ICARUS detector at Fermilab, the search offers a first look at the capabilities of the detector with respect to the beyond the standard model searches.
Many kinds of new-physics signatures are predicted from extensions to the Standard Model, motivating searches in extant data and sensitivity estimates in future planned neutrino detectors to look for evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. A major thrust in recent years has been to formulate model-independent frameworks to facilitate analyses with detailed treatments of experimental uncertainties, while retaining the capability to adapt to various models of interest. Extending the BeamHNL framework of the GENIE event generator, a generic simulation framework for long-lived particles produced in meson decays, ExoticLLP, is under development. ExoticLLP is applicable both to accelerator and atmospheric contexts, leveraging a detailed interface between flux simulations for hadrons and detector geometries, as well as user input for the specific production and decay modes of such particles. Its design is intended to facilitate reweighting of events by the user, saving detailed information of the new-physics particle’s ancestry as well as the conditional probabilities for its acceptance by the detector, survival to reach the detector, decay inside the volume, and handles for the vertex distribution inside the detector.
The Muon g-2 experiment, FNAL E989, collected muon beam data over six accelerator operations years from 2017 to 2023. Since the final experimental uncertainty is expected to be statistically limited, time during accelerator-on periods was spent almost entirely on collecting “production” quality muon data and the necessary associated magnetic field measurements (“trolley runs”). Limited time was given during summer shutdowns to magnetic field studies, but those studies had to fit in around scheduled maintenance and power outages. After reaching the statistics goal of 21x the BNL E821 data set in early 2023, significant time was spent performing muon beam and decay positron systematic studies with the remaining beam-on time of 2023. After the end of muon data collection in July 2023, an additional ~6 month period of magnet operation was undertaken to perform final systematic studies related to magnetic field corrections, before finally warming the superconducting coils up to room temperature in February 2024. I will discuss methods and preliminary results of studies during this period that were aimed at decreasing uncertainties on some of the crucial corrections to trolley run data and improving our understanding of fast magnetic field transients.
We present a compact scintillating fibre timing detector developed for the Mu3e experiment. Mu3e is one of the flagship experiments of the Swiss particle physics scene, aiming to search for the charged lepton flavour violating “neutrinoless” muon decay (μ+ -> e+e+e-). Mu3e is planned to start taking data in 2025 at the Paul Scherrer Institute (CH), using the world's most intense continuous surface muon beam (10^8 muons per second).
Together with partners from ETH Zurich, at the University of Geneva, we are developing a scintillating fibre detector formed by staggering three layers of 250 μm scintillating fibres. The fibre ribbons are coupled at both ends to multi-channel silicon photo-multiplier arrays. These are read out with the MuTRiG ASIC, specifically developed for this experiment.
The presentation is going to be focused on the performances of the scintillating fibre detector, notably on the time resolution of ~250 ps, the efficiency of ~97%, and spatial resolution of ~100 μm, including the time calibration of the detector. In this presentation, we also include the challenges overcome to build this very thin scintillating fibre detector, having a thickness smaller than 0.2% of the radiation length. Further, we discuss the operation and performance of the MuTRiG ASIC, used for reading out the ~3000 channels of the fibre detector.
For accelerator neutrino experiments, an accurate prediction of the incoming neutrino flux is crucial for reducing uncertainties for all physics measurements. In this exciting period for the Short-Baseline Neutrino program at Fermilab, with far detector (ICARUS) already operating and the near detector (SBND) nearing operation, an updated flux model for the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) is presented. The BNB delivers 8 GeV protons to a beryllium target, subsequently producing neutrinos from the decay of the secondary beam of hadrons. A updated Monte-Carlo simulation of beam production in GEANT4 has been created, allowing predictions to be made for detectors with different baselines, offsets and sizes. This new simulation contains new features, such as a full neutrino ancestry to handle hadron production systematics with more precision, with a view to storing all resulting particles - including neutral mesons - from the proton-Beryllium scatter to allow the study of exotic BSM scenarios. Results are presented, with comparisons to the original flux simulated for the MiniBooNE experiment.
The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detector located in the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab, and is part of the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program. The detector is currently being commissioned and has collected its initial neutrino beam dataset. This poster will detail the effort to commission SBND, including the detector subsystems, the data acquisition system, and the trigger system. An initial look at detector performance will be provided. This work forms the foundation for SBND’s rich and exciting physics program across neutrino interaction measurements, novel searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, and contributing to the SBN sterile neutrino program. The current status and future prospects will be discussed.
The T2K near detector ND280 is used to constrain cross-section and flux models in the neutrino oscillation analysis. To improve the physics capabilities of the experiment, the upstream part of the detector is modified by adding a new highly granular scintillator detector (Super-FGD), two High-Angle TPCs and six thin Time-of-Flight scintillator layers. This poster focuses on the Super-FGD, which consists of 2 million 1 $\rm cm^3$ cubic scintillators with readout by fibers in 3 directions.
The readout of the Super-FGD detector is realized by a set of electronics including MPPCs, frontend boards, optical concentrator boards and master clock boards. A data acquisition (DAQ) system based on a software framework, called MIDAS, is developed to integrate the new detector to the current ND280. With MIDAS frontends running on the backend electronics and the personal computer (PC), the PC can control the data taking and obtain the time and amplitude information from the MPPC signals. The global integration of the Super-FGD DAQ system to the current ND280 DAQ system is enabled and the system is now running stably with the T2K neutrino beam. With LED, cosmic and T2K neutrino beam data, the detector response is characterised, including the light yield, fiber attenuation length and the optical cross talk of the cubes. This poster introduces the development of the Super-FGD DAQ system and the detector response with calibration data.
Neutrino-nucleus cross section measurements are needed to improve interaction modeling to enable precision oscillation measurements and searches for physics beyond the standard model. This poster presents the methodology and application of data-driven model validation, which supplements “traditional” fake-data driven model validation with direct comparison to the reconstructed data. Through the use of the conditional constraint formalism, this approach can yield highly sensitive tests to detect mismodeling before unfolding. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated through a series of fake data studies corresponding to the multi-differential cross section $d^{2}\sigma(E_{\nu})/dcos(\theta_{\mu})dP_{\mu}$ measured for inclusive muon-neutrino charged-current scattering on argon in MicroBooNE.
Current and future large neutrino liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) experiments can broaden their physics reach by incorporating isolated MeV-scale features present in their data. In this study, we use data from the MicroBooNE detector, an 85 tonnes LArTPC exposed to Fermilab neutrino beams from 2015 until 2021, to demonstrate new calorimetric and particle discrimination capabilities for isolated ~O(1 MeV) energy depositions referred to as "blips." We observe a concentration of blips near fiberglass mechanical support struts along the TPC edge, with an energy spectrum indicative of specific gamma-ray decay lines. These and other blip sources are being used to validate the energy-scale calibration in MicroBooNE's data leveraging specific spectral features from the detector's MeV-scale sources. This work further reports on the progress towards demonstrating the ability of large LArTPCs to distinguish between low-energy proton and electron energy depositions above 3 MeV in electron-equivalent reconstructed energy using cosmogenic-produced activity. Furthermore, The composition of proton-like blips selected using this new technique is being studied to evaluate the accuracy of the cosmic ray flux model commonly used in LArTPCs.
There are several long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments around the world, which study neutrino properties by observing the effects of neutrino oscillations over long distances. Most of these experiments also have near detectors to constrain the properties of the neutrino beam, such as its flux and energy spectrum, and to control systematic uncertainties. To achieve a narrower neutrino energy spectrum, it is often necessary to place the detector off-axis of the neutrino beam. This poster will primarily focus on the T2K experiment, specifically the near detector (ND280), which is positioned 2.5 degrees off the beamline axis.
In the T2K experiment, neutrinos are produced when accelerated protons hit a graphite target, generating secondary particles such as pions and kaons. These particles decay at different positions along the 96 m long decay volume. The location of the neutrino production affects the off-axis angle at which the neutrino arrives at the near detector, which in turn affects the neutrino energy spectrum observed.
In this poster, we propose a new experimental observable that explores the decay position of neutrino parent particles using different frames of reference defined along the decay volume and the neutrino direction reconstructed from muon and proton properties in CCQE events. This observable allows us to differentiate neutrinos produced before or after the center of the selected frame of reference along the decay volume. This measurement will improve our understanding of the distribution of the off-axis angle of neutrinos and, more importantly, their energy distribution. This observable can also provide indications of detector misalignment, beam alignment issues, or the average decay position of the parents of neutrinos in the decay volume, among other factors which affect the expected neutrino flux at the near detector.
The Precision Reactor Oscillation and SPECTrum (PROSPECT) reactor antineutrino experiment is designed to detect eV-scale sterile neutrino oscillation at short baselines. PROSPECT's segmented detector is positioned approximately 7 meters away from the compact research reactor core at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor. During the data collection period, certain photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) experienced current instabilities, which resulted in the previous search for sterile neutrino oscillation being dominated by statistical uncertainties. However, by using new analysis approaches: multi-period dataset combined with single-ended event reconstruction, we successfully recovered and maximized Inverse Beta Decay (IBD) events while reducing background for each period. The poster will present the final results for sterile neutrino oscillation searches from the PROSPECT experiment using the optimized dataset.
This material is based upon work supported by the following sources: US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, and internal investments at all institutions.
We present the first measurement of differential cross sections for charged-current muon neutrino interactions on argon with one muon, two protons, and no pions in the final state, using the MicroBooNE Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber. Such interactions leave the target nucleus in a two-particle two-hole state; these states are of great interest, but currently, there is limited information about their production in neutrino-nucleus interactions. Detailed investigations of the production of two-particle two-hole states are vital to support upcoming experiments exploring the nature of the neutrino, and the development of the liquid-argon time-projection-chamber has made possible the isolation of such final states in neutrino scattering. Among the many kinematic quantities we measure, the opening angle between the two protons, the angle between the total proton momentum and the muon, and the total transverse momentum of the final state system are most sensitive to the underlying physics processes as embodied in a variety of models.
A comprehensive international effort has been underway to elucidate the properties and behaviors of neutrinos. A major source of systematic uncertainties in studying neutrino-induced interactions comes from neutrino-nucleus cross-section models, highlighting the need for more precise statistical measurements. MINERvA, an on-axis neutrino-nucleus scattering experiment located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, was established to produce neutrino cross-section measurements with many different nuclei. The helium target is the lightest nucleus to be measured by MINERvA. Using the NuMI medium energy muon neutrino data set, we present preliminary results and summarize the extraction of the charged current (CC) muon neutrino - helium-4 semi-inclusive ($\nu_{\mu}$+$^{4}\textrm{He}$$\rightarrow$$\mu^{-}$+N$\pi$+M$\textit{p}$) multi-differential cross-section extraction as a function of transverse ($P_{T}$) and longitudinal ($P_{L}$) muon momentum with respect to the neutrino beamline. We define the final state topology as CC-N$\pi$M$\textit{p}$, with at least two reconstructed tracks: a muon and a combination of N protons and M pions, where $N + M > 0$. To probe the dependence on the size of the nucleus in neutrino-induced interaction phenomena we present a differential cross-section ratio of helium-4 to MINERvA's hydrocarbon target (CH) as a function of transverse muon momentum.
The NOvA experiment, a long-baseline neutrino experiment based at Fermilab, is dedicated to measuring various neutrino oscillation parameters with high precision. One of the significant contributions to systematic uncertainty in these measurements is the cross-section systematics, which arises from an incomplete understanding of nuclear models and neutrino-nucleus interactions. Recently, there has been growing interest in the Hartree Fock Continuum Random Phase Approximation (HF-CRPA) model for quasi-elastic interaction processes. This HF-CRPA model offers substantial improvements in the low-momentum-transfer region, with an approximate 10% enhancement in cross-section.
In this talk, I will present our study on the impact of the HF-CRPA model on the latest measurements of the three PMNS matrix parameters: $\Delta m_{32}^2$, $\sin^2(\theta_{23})$, and $\delta_{CP}$
LArIAT is a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) experiment in a test beam, took data at Fermilab from 2015 to 2017 to understand and characterize interactions of particles in LAr which are commonly observed in neutrino-Ar final-states. In LArTPCs tracks for pions and muons that stop in the TPC have similar ionization profiles, making the particle identification hard. We are presenting unique new particle discrimination capabilities using “blips”, small, isolated ionization depositions reconstructed near the endpoint of stopping tracks. These blips are formed by gammas emitted when an at-rest pion or muon captures on the argon nucleus. The relatively low beam energy provided by LArIAT makes it uniquely suited for performing this demonstration. We present an overview of event candidate selection, blip reconstruction, and background subtraction corresponding to our signal of interest, nuclear captures of pions and muons at rest inside LArIAT's TPC.
The MicroBooNE detector is a liquid argon time projection chamber with an active mass of 85 tons. It is located in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam, where it collected data from 2015 to 2020. As part of its primary scientific objectives, MicroBooNE aims to extract precise measurements of muon neutrino - argon charged current interaction cross-sections. Such measurements are important to improve our understanding of nuclear modeling (e.g., final state interactions, Fermi motion) for more accurate estimation of variables not directly observed (for example, the neutrino energy in neutrino oscillations). In this poster, we will discuss the channel where no pions have been detected in the final state ($ν_μCC0\pi$).
A detailed understanding of muon neutrino charged-current interactions on argon is crucial to the study of neutrino oscillations in current and future experiments using liquid argon time projection chambers. To help fill this need, MicroBooNE has produced a comprehensive set of cross section measurements which simultaneously probe the leptonic and hadronic systems by dividing the inclusive channel into final states with and without protons. Data-driven model validation utilizing the conditional constraint formalism is employed to detect mismodeling that may bias the nominal flux averaged cross section results, which are extracted with the Wiener-SVD unfolding method. The results are compared to widely used event generator predictions revealing significant mismodeling of final states without protons, possibly due to insufficient treatment of final state interactions. These are first differential muon neutrino-argon cross section measurements made simultaneously for final states with and without protons, and provide novel information that will help stimulate the improvement of event generator modeling.
In this poster, we shall report neutrino cross sections for the kinematic region defined as Shallow Inelastic Scattering (1.5 $<$ W $<$ 2.0 GeV) at MINERvA, located at Fermilab. These cross sections will be on the hydrocarbon central tracker exposed to the NuMI ME beam with neutrino energy peaked at around $E_{\nu} = 6$ GeV. The SIS region has never been specifically studied, and thus the results we report will provide stringent tests for neutrino event generators contributing to the refinement and reducing systematic uncertainties of models describing this less explored kinematic region. Moreover, the presenter will discuss future prospects for making two-dimension cross sections with the MINERvA data set, such as for $Q^{2}$, Bjorken x and muon variables.
The non-standard interaction (NSI) of neutrinos mediated by a scalar particle is an interesting new physics scenario to explore in oscillation experiments. The scalar NSI contribution appears as a perturbation to the mass term in the neutrino Hamiltonian, giving a unique possibility of probing absolute neutrino mass through oscillations. The linear scaling of scalar NSI with matter density makes long-baseline experiments an excellent tool for exploring scalar NSI. We present compact analytical expressions of neutrino oscillation probabilities in the presence of diagonal elements of the scalar NSI matrix. The expressions will facilitate our understanding of various trends and patterns observed in the oscillation probabilities due to the presence of scalar NSI.
We have developed a neutrino detector with threshold energies from ~0.2 to 100 MeV in a clean detection mode almost completely void of spurious backgrounds. It was initially developed for the NASA neutrino Solar Orbiting Lab project to put a solar neutrino detector very close to the Sun with 1000 to 10,000 times more solar neutrino flux than on Earth, but similar interactions have been found for anti-neutrinos; again, initially intended for Beta decay neutrinos from reactors, geological sources or for nuclear security applications. However, the technique works at the 10 to 100 MeV region for neutrinos from the ORNL Spallation Neutron Source or low energy accelerator neutrino and anti-neutrino production targets less than ~100 MeV. Its identification process is clean with a double pulse detection signature within a time window between the first interaction producing the conversion electron or positron and the secondary nuclear excited state gamma emission delayed 100 to 1000 ns, which removes most spurious background events. These new modes for neutrino and anti-neutrino detection of low energy neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, could allow improvements to neutrino low energy neutrino production measurements from accelerator targets.
A novel three-dimensional projection scintillator tracker called SuperFGD is one of the key components of the near detector upgrade of the T2K experiment. Due to the nanosecond timing resolution and fine granularity, SuperFGD will provide essential data for studying neutrino interactions. A prototype of the SuperFGD detector was exposed to a neutron beam at LANL to study its response to neutron interactions, which is critical for future studies of neutrino interactions involving a neutron in the final state in the T2K SuperFGD near detector. This poster will present preliminary results on the implementation of particle identification (PID) for distinguishing proton and pion events using the SuperFGD prototype detector simulation. This PID development will enable future measurements of neutron-induced proton and pion production cross-sections on the scintillator using the SuperFGD prototype data.
Portrait of a Scientist aims to deconstruct stereotypes about what a scientist looks like and how they act by showcases people's multifaceted identities. Participants are asked to complete the phrase "I am a scientist and I also..." with any hobby, role, or identity that they feel comfortable sharing. The most engagement with the project, which has been running since 2021, has occurred when responses are collected during in-person particle physics conferences and meetings. This has had the added benefit of introducing participants to each other’s uniqueness, or even their similarities, that goes beyond physics. This poster will highlight some of the project’s responses, interactions, and outcomes and discuss expanding its potential future impact.
EMPHATIC (Experiment to Measure the Production of Hadrons At a Test beam In Chicagoland) is a Fermilab-based table-top size experiment focused on hadron production measurements. Flux is a limiting systematic for all neutrino cross section measurements by current experiments and we rely on a-priori predictions of the flux for analyses, including measurements of neutrino oscillations, neutrino-nucleus cross sections, and beyond-the-Standard Model searches. These flux predictions rely on simulations of the production and focusing of hadrons in and downstream of the neutrino production target, resulting in 10-20% uncertainties. The goals of the experiment are to address gaps in our understanding of hadron-scattering and hadron-production cross sections with better than 10% measurements and the first-ever measurement of the hadron spectrum downstream of a target and horn.
A compact Halbach array magnet with B.dl~0.2 Tm is used to measure the momentum of the secondary particles. The Phase 1 Halbach array magnet is a ~104 kg, 3 layer magnet with a total of 48 uniformly magnetized components of Neodymium (NdFeB N52) permanent magnets resulting in a dipole magnetic field. Hall probe data was taken for the central cylindrical bore of the magnet and a field map was constructed that showed a spatial asymmetry. COMSOL Multiphysics® Software is used for modeling the magnet and constructing the corresponding magnetic field map. We present a fitting approach where the hall probe data is used to determine a 1mm-spacing map of the entire volume of the magnet using COMSOL. The new map will allow for linear interpolation within the volume, and expand the map to outside the measurement volume, thus increasing the acceptance and precision of EMPHATIC’s tracking system.
The Precision Reactor Oscillation and SPECTrum (PROSPECT) experiment is a short-baseline reactor experiment with the goal of measuring the antineutrino spectrum from the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). It searches for potential short-baseline oscillations and the existence of sterile neutrinos. PROSPECT has already set new limits on the existence of eV-scale sterile neutrinos while achieving the highest signal-to-background ratio on any surface antineutrino detector. The collaboration has developed an upgraded detector design, called PROSPECT-II, which will increase the detector's statistics and physics sensitivity. In this poster I will describe major design features of the PROSPECT-II detector, highlighting improved design elements with respect to the first-generation PROSPECT-I detector and discuss how these improvements will add to the first-generation oscillation and spectrum results.
MicroBooNE is an 85-tonne active mass liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detector exposed to the Booster Neutrino Beamline (BNB) at Fermilab. One of the key physics goals is the precise measurement of neutrino interactions on argon in the 1 GeV energy regime. The study of heavier mesons in neutrino interactions will help to improve the background estimates for future nucleon decay searches in experiments such as DUNE, and it will allow the development of techniques to enhance the particle identification capabilities of a LArTPC. In this poster, we will present the first ever cross-section measurements of charged current muon neutrino-induced heavy meson production (kaon production and eta production) on argon at MicroBooNE.
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), located in Southern China, is a next-generation neutrino experiment that consists of a 20-kton liquid scintillator detector. JUNO's primary objective is to determine the neutrino mass ordering (NMO) via reactor neutrino oscillation measurements. Cosmic muons contribute to one of the dominant background sources to reactor neutrinos by producing isotopes that mimic the inverse beta decay (IBD) signal. Good capability of reconstructing cosmic muon tracks is crucial to reject those background. In this poster, I present a comprehensive approach based on machine learning for the cosmic muon track reconstruction. The muons are first classified into different categories according to their track multiplicity and containment. Reconstruction strategies are developed for each category, and their performances with Monte-Carlo simulations are presented. This study demonstrates the feasibility of presice reconstruction of cosmic muon tracks in a large liquid scintillator detector such as JUNO with machine learning, and shows great potential for background reduction for future reactor neutrino oscillation analyses.
The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND), a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) located at Fermilab, is on track to collect the world's largest neutrino-argon scattering dataset, at a rate of over two million interaction events per year. Such statistics, combined with advanced detector and software capabilities, will enable excellent cross section measurements, addressing previous limitations on statistical and systematic uncertainties of the experiment's predecessors. Modeling neutrino-nucleus interactions with heavy nuclei at the GeV energy range is a critical challenge for neutrino experiments like the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), and broadly impacts neutrino interaction physics, oscillation measurements, as well as exotic searches. In this energy range, neutrinos scatter on nuclei through multiple interaction modes, and various nuclear effects further complicate the interpretation of the observed final states. The nuclear effects can be investigated in detail through the muon neutrino charged-current interaction with a single proton and no pions in the final state, the channel which is representative of quasi-elastic scattering. This poster demonstrates the high-purity, high-statistics selection on this channel at SBND and discusses its implications for a better understanding of neutrino-nucleus interactions.
The NINJA experiment aims to precisely measure neutrino interactions using a nuclear emulsion detector to reduce systematic errors in the neutrino oscillation experiments including T2K experiment, and search for sterile neutrinos. The nuclear emulsion, with its sub-micron positional resolution, allows for detecting low-momentum charged particles such as protons with a threshold of 200 MeV/c. In the NINJA experiment, a muon detector placed downstream of the emulsion detector is used to identify muons from $\nu_\mu$ CC interactions. While the nuclear emulsion offers an excellent positional resolution, it lacks timing information, and most of the tracks accumulated in the nuclear emulsion are from cosmic rays. Consequently, the positional resolution of the muon detector is not enough to match the muon tracks to the emulsion detector. To address this, a scintillation tracker is used to provide both timing and positional information for the tracks.
The NINJA experiment is planning a third physics run with about 130 kg water target in 2025. Since the target mass is larger than previous runs, a larger scintillation tracker covering 1.3 m ×1.3 m is needed. We are developing a newly designed scintillation tracker, consisting of a monolithic plastic scintillator plane including scatterers. In this presentation, we will show the preparation status and plan for the next physics run, focusing particularly on the development of the new scintillation tracker.
MicroBooNE is a liquid argon time projection chamber in the Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermilab. One of MicroBooNE's primary goals is to investigate the MiniBooNE low energy excess of events containing a single electromagnetic shower. The largest predicted source of single shower events is charged current electron neutrino interactions, but MicroBooNE has disfavored an excess of this topology in several analyses. The next largest prediction for single showers is neutral current (NC) Delta radiative decays, producing a high energy photon. In this poster, we discuss an expansion upon a previous search for these NC Delta radiative topologies in MicroBooNE, with additional selections and additional data, and in particular, additional sensitivity to a potential excess of events with one photon and zero protons.
The Lorentz Invariance is the foundation of other successful theories, like quantum field theory, and is connected to fundamental symmetries, like charge, parity, and time reversal (CPT), which is essential in the Standard Model of particle physics. Alternative theories proposing that Lorentz Invariance may break in some scales have been considered in the context of neutrino oscillations, as they can explain some anomalies present in experiments like LSND and MiniBoone. The dependence on baseline and energy can distinguish the influence of LIV on these anomalies in contrast with other effects, like Non-Standard Interactions (NSI). In this work, we continue our simulation studies to study the influence of Lorentz-violating parameters in neutrino experiments combining two different baselines. We use the General Long-Baseline Experiment Simulator (GLoBES) with a modified probability engine to include LIV parameters.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a 1,300 km long-baseline neutrino experiment that will send a neutrino beam through two particle detectors. The near detector will be located 60 m underground at Fermilab (Chicago), and the far detector will be located 1.5 km underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. The far detector module (FD-HD) will be equipped with liquid-argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) and horizontal drift (HD) technologies. When a neutrino interacts with the liquid argon atoms, the produced ionization charges will drift horizontally under the influence of an electric field toward an instrumented anode. The FD-HD will employ a UV LED based fiber light calibration system (UV-LCS) to monitor the performance and ensure an equalized response of the photon detection system (PDS). The UV-LCS will utilize ~1000 optical fibers and ~210 light diffusers that will be deployed in the FD-HD cryostat. This poster will describe the design, testing, installation, commissioning and operation of the UV LCS in ProtoDUNE HD and the future prospects for deployment in the DUNE FD-HD.
The next generation of neutrino oscillation experiments, JUNO, DUNE, and HK, are under construction now and will collect data over the next decade and beyond. As there are no approved plans to follow up this program with more advanced neutrino oscillation experiments, we consider here one option that had gained considerable interest more than a decade ago: a neutrino factory. Such an experiment uses stored muons in a racetrack configuration with extremely well characterized decays reducing systematic uncertainties and providing for more oscillation channels. Such a machine could also be one step towards a high energy muon collider program. We consider a long-baseline configuration to SURF using the DUNE far detectors or modifications thereof, and compare the expected sensitivities to the three-flavor oscillation parameters to the anticipated results from DUNE and HK. We find that a neutrino factory can improve our understanding of CP violation and also aid in disentangling the complicated flavor puzzle.
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a 20-kton liquid scintillator detector currently under construction 700 m underground in southern China. The detector is located 53 km from the Taishan and Yangjiang nuclear power plants and will simultaneously probe solar ($\Delta m^2_{21}$) and atmospheric ($\Delta m^2_{31}$) oscillations using reactor antineutrinos. The primary goals of the experiment are the determination of the Neutrino Mass Ordering (NMO) and the precision measurement of the neutrino oscillation parameters $\Delta m^2_{21}$, $\Delta m^2_{21}$, and $\sin^{2}\theta_{12}$. In order to determine NMO with ~3$\sigma$ significance using around 6 years of data, a high energy resolution ($\leq$ 3% at 1 MeV) and low energy scale uncertainty (< 1%) are needed. This talk will discuss the current status of JUNO and its various neutrino oscillation physics prospects.
The Hyper-Kamiokande (Hyper-K) is the third generation of underground water Cherenkov detectors in Japan. It will serve twofold: as the far detector for a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment for the upgraded, to 1.3 MW power, J-PARC muon neutrino/antineutrino beam and as a detector capable of observing proton decays, atmospheric neutrinos, and neutrinos from astronomical sources. It will consist of a cylindrical tank with a water depth of 71 m and a diameter of 68 m. The fiducial region of the detector, with a mass of 186 kton, will be instrumented with 20,000 20-inch photomultipliers (PMTs) and 800 multi-PMT modules, each of which contains 19 3-inch PMTs. The experiment is under construction, the excavation is ongoing, and the detector assembly (data taking) is scheduled to start in early 2026 (end of 2027). We will present the sensitivity of Hyper-K to CP violation, and other oscillation parameters of interest in the 3-flavour paradigm. These studies are based on the T2K model of systematic uncertainties, with projections of precision expected with the next generation of near and intermediate detectors in the J-PARC neutrino beam.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next generation, long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment which will utilize a high-intensity $\nu_{\mu}$ and $\bar{\nu}_{\mu}$ beam, sampled twice, over a 1285 km baseline, to make discovery-level measurements of neutrino mixing. The unoscillated neutrino flux, which peaks at about 2.5 GeV, will be constrained with the near detector complex at Fermilab, and the effect of neutrino mixing will be observed by the DUNE far detectors at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The far detectors will ultimately comprise four liquid argon detector modules, each containing a total active target mass of 17 kt. This talk will describe DUNE's long-baseline physics sensitivity, and underlines the central role of the near detector complex in achieving precision oscillation parameter measurements, resolving the mass hierarchy and searching for CP-violation.
The IceCube Upgrade will be an extension of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory which consists of the addition of 7 more densely instrumented strings placed within the IceCube DeepCore volume to enhance performance in the GeV energy range. The additional strings will feature new types of instruments and optical modules, each containing multiple photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), which will improve the calibration, detection efficiency, reconstruction performance, and particle classification at GeV energies and provide world-leading oscillation sensitivities using atmospheric neutrinos. In this talk, we will give a summary of the new hardware to be incorporated for the IceCube Upgrade, discuss the reconstruction, classification, and selection techniques developed for the IceCube Upgrade oscillation sample, and show sensitivities to measurements of physics parameters using atmospheric neutrinos with IceCube Upgrade.
The NEUT interaction generator is used in Super-Kamiokande, T2K and Hyper-Kamiokande to simulate neutrino interactions with between 100 MeV and a few TeV of energy. This talk will present the recent developments and perspective for NEUT.
The international GENIE Collaboration maintains and develops an extensive software suite to meet the simulation needs of the broad neutrino community. GENIE develops a universal event generator simulating neutrino interactions from MeV to PeV energy scales, and a global analysis of neutrino scattering data used for model characterization, tuning and uncertainty evaluations. In recent years, there were significant advances towards a) the construction and characterisation of several alternative comprehensive neutrino interaction models in the GeV energy range, b) the tuning and evaluation of uncertainties for key modelling elements, c) the implementation of more rare neutrino scattering processes, d) the development of extensions for low and ultra high energy neutrinos, e) the validation and improvement of complementary electron scattering simulations, and f) the implementation within GENIE of BSM simulations, such as the simulation of dark neutrinos, boosted dark matter and heavy neutral leptons. This talk presents selected highlights from these ongoing developments.
NuWro, a state-of-the-art Monte Carlo generator developed by theorists at the University of Wroclaw, simulates neutrino-nucleus interactions. This talk will demonstrate NuWro's capabilities, methodologies, and applications in simulating neutrino-nucleus interactions across a wide energy range, from a few hundred MeV to hundreds of GeV.
In my talk, I will discuss various interaction models that NuWro employs within the impulse approximation(IA), such as quasi-elastic scattering (QEl), meson exchange currents (MEC), resonant pion production (RES), deep inelastic scattering (DIS), and coherent pion production (COH). I will also put special emphasis on the spectral function formalism and nuclear effects simulations like Pauli blocking, fermi motion, and formation zone developed within NuWro. Additionally, I will cover the intra-nuclear cascade model (INC) used for simulating final state interactions within NuWro. Lastly, I will highlight recent developments in NuWro like the development of the single pion production model, the spectral function of Argon, new exclusive hadronic models for MEC, and the incorporation of AI features in NuWro.
Large liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detectors, such as those planned for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), show considerable promise as a platform for next-generation measurements of supernova neutrinos. Thanks to the neutron excess in 40Ar as well as the detailed tracking possible with LArTPCs, these detectors are expected to be uniquely capable of measuring supernova electron neutrinos with high statistics and minimal backgrounds. However, these technological advantages come at the price of complexities in data interpretation; reconstruction of the incident energies of supernova neutrinos in a future LArTPC-based analysis will be subject to a variety of systematic uncertainties related to nuclear interaction modeling. In this talk, we present recent improvements to the interaction model implemented in the MARLEY event generator used by DUNE and other LArTPC neutrino experiments. These include the addition of forbidden nuclear transitions under a Continuum Random Phase Approximation (CRPA) approach, as well as a first evaluation of optical potential uncertainties for exclusive neutrino-nucleus cross sections at tens-of-MeV energies. The talk will examine the impact of these simulation enhancements on observables of interest for DUNE and preview a new major release of the MARLEY code.
The Achilles is a novel neutrino event generator that takes inspiration from the tools developed by the LHC community. In this talk, I will discuss the current status of Achilles, with a focus on including resonance interactions, pion cascades, and the one-body-two-body interference terms. Additionally, I will discuss the near future plans for Achilles.
The ENUBET project recently concluded the R&D for a site independent design of a monitored neutrino beam for high precision cross section measurements, in which the neutrino flux is inferred from the measurement of charged leptons in an instrumented decay tunnel. In this phase three fundamental results were obtained and will be discussed in this talk: 1) a beamline not requiring a horn and relying on static focusing elements allows to perform a $\nu_e$ cross section measurement in the DUNE energy range with 1% statistical uncertainty employing 10$^{20}$ 400 GeV protons on target (pot) and a moderate mass neutrino detector of the size of protoDUNE; 2) the instrumentation of the decay tunnel, based on a cost effective sampling calorimeter solution, has been tested with a large scale prototype achieving the performance required to identify positrons and muons from kaon decays with high signal-to-noise ratio; 3) the systematics budget on the neutrino flux is constrained at the 1% level by fitting the charged leptons observables measured in the decay tunnel.
Based on these successful results ENUBET is now pursuing a study for a site dependent implementation at CERN in the framework of Physics Beyond Colliders. In this context a new beamline, able to enrich the neutrino flux at the energy of HK and to reduce by more than a factor 3 the needed pot, has been designed and is being optimized. The civil engineering and radioprotection studies for the siting of ENUBET in the North Area towards the two protoDUNEs are also in the scope of this work, with the goal of proposing a neutrino cross section experiment in 2026. The combined use of both the neutrino detectors and of the improved beamline would allow to perform cross section measurements with unprecedented precision in about 5 years with a proton request compatible with the needs of other users after CERN Long Shutdown 3. An update on the status of these studies and future plans will be presented.
High intensity neutrino beam over 1 MW beam power is crucial to search for CP violation in Lepton sector. J-PARC accelerator and neutrino beamline are being upgraded towards 1.3 MW beam power for Hyper-Kamiokande experiment. Magnetic horns are used to focus secondary particles produced in a neutrino production target and can intensify the neutrino beam by more than an order of magnitude. Significant upgrades have been made in recent years. Rated current is increased from 250kA to 320kA, which enable to increase the neutrino intensity by 10%, by upgrading almost all the electrical components of the system (power supplies, transformers, etc). Cooling capability has also been improved by developing a new cooling scheme. Reinforcement of removal of hydrogen gas produced from a water radiolysis by intense beams has also been in progress. Details of the upgrades and operation experience, as well as prospects for 1.3 MW operation, are described.
What do the accelerator target stations of the next decade look like? The NuMI beamline, fed by Fermilab’s Main Injector, recently exceeded 1 MW beam power. Future experiments fed by the PIP-II superconducting linear accelerator might demand upwards of 2 MW in continuous-wave mode, compared the pulsed beams typical of neutrino experiments. Looking further into the future, the Muon Collider front end includes a target station with even higher power – 5 MW or beyond.
How do we build a 2+ MW target facility? How does a high-power, low-energy, CW beam affect target design compared to conventional high-energy neutrino targets? How do we manage radiation and heat? How is the facility serviced? What is the current state of capability, and what technologies do we need to develop? These questions are answered in the context of F2D2, a conceptual target station design for dark sector physics experiments using beam from PIP-II.
Lepton flavour violation (LFV), and lepton flavour university violation (LFUV), are a striking signature of potential beyond the Standard Model physics. This talk presents recent searches and tests for LFV and LFUV with the ATLAS detector, using proton-proton collisions with a centre of mass energy of 13 TeV. A broad range of models and signatures are considered, including leptoquarks, heavy neutral leptons and EFT interpretations, charged-LFV in top quark decays, measurements for W branching ratios to different flavours, and a new measurement of R(K).
Recent LFV results from CMS
Rates of lepton-flavor violation in charged lepton decays are enhanced in many beyond-the-standard-model theories. The low-background samples of $e^+e^- \to \tau^+\tau^-$ events collected by Belle and Belle II allow world-leading searches for such decays with tau leptons. We present Belle II results for the decays $\tau \to \ell V^0$, where $V^0$ is a neutral vector meson, $\tau \to 3\mu$, $\tau \to \Lambda \pi$ and $\tau \to \bar\Lambda \pi$ (which violates both baryon and lepton number conservation) using data samples up to 424 fb$^{−1}$. We also present Belle searches for the charged lepton-flavor-violating (CLFV) decays $B_s \to \ell \tau$ and $\Upsilon(2S) \to \ell \tau$. We present searches for the for the baryon and lepton number violating decays $D \to p \ell$ by analyzing 921 fb$^{−1}$ of data collected by Belle at and 60 MeV below the $\Upsilon(4S)$ resonance, and at the $\Upsilon(5S)$ resonance. Finally, we present a search for $B^0 \to K^0_S \tau \ell$ using a combined Belle and Belle II data set.
The muEDM experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) aims to measure the muon's electric dipole moment (EDM) using the frozen spin technique. This approach involves storing muons within a solenoid and applying a radial electric field to counteract the spin precession caused by the anomalous magnetic moment. Any remaining longitudinal precession would indicate a non-zero EDM. The experiment is divided into two phases. Phase I, set to commence in 2026, will validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the frozen spin technique, aiming for an annual statistical sensitivity of $3 \times 10^{-21}~$e$\cdot$cm, comparable to the parasitic approach utilized by current muon g-2 experiments. Phase II aims to improve this sensitivity by 100 by the early 2030s, targeting an ultimate sensitivity of $6 \times 10^{-23}~$e$\cdot$cm. The detection method involves analyzing the upstream-downstream asymmetry in the decay positron count over time, providing a precise and direct measurement of the muon EDM. Reaching sensitivities beyond $10^{-21}~$e$\cdot$cm will enable us to probe for new physics beyond the Standard Model and additional sources of CP violation. This talk will cover the experimental setup and progress to date of the muEDM experiment at PSI.
High-energy astrophysical neutrinos, recently discovered by IceCube up to energies of several PeV, opened a new window to the high-energy Universe. Despite IceCube's excellent muon flavour identification, tau neutrinos have still not been unambiguously detected. To address this limitation, we present a concept for a large-scale observatory of astrophysical tau neutrinos in the 1 – 100 PeV range, where a flux is guaranteed to exist. The key innovation of TAMBO is its location on one of the faces of the 3 km deep Canyon of Colca (Peru). The mountain geometry is used as a natural background filter, allowing the detector array to observe Earth-skimming tau neutrinos. These enter the dense mountain volume, and if a charged-current interaction occurs, tau leptons are produced. These propagate further on a range between 50 m and 5 km. If the tau leptons exit the mountain volume and get into the valley, they decay, generating extensive air showers that can be detected. TAMBO aims to achieve an order of magnitude better acceptance of high-energy tau neutrinos than IceCube. However, at the same time, TAMBO is designed to overlap with Ice Cube in the 1 - 10 PeV range. This would allow an in-detail characterization of the neutrino sources observed by IceCube, the discovery of new ones, and the exploration of neutrino physics at high energies. The deep-valley air-shower array concept that we present provides highly background-suppressed neutrino detection with pointing resolution better than 1°, allowing us to begin the era of high-energy tau-neutrino astronomy. In this contribution, I am going to report on the progress of the detector design and the optimization studies foreseen in the near future.
The neutrinos in the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB) travel over cosmological distances and this provides them with an excellent opportunity to interact with dark relics. We show that a cosmologically-significant relic population of keV-mass sterile neutrinos with strong self-interactions could imprint their presence in the DSNB. The signatures of the self-interactions would be ``dips" in the otherwise smooth DSNB spectrum. Upcoming large-scale neutrino detectors, for example Hyper-Kamiokande, have a good chance of detecting the DSNB and these dips. If no dips are detected, this method serves as an independent constraint on the sterile neutrino self-interaction strength and mixing with active neutrinos. We show that relic sterile neutrino parameters that evade X-ray and structure bounds may nevertheless be testable by future detectors like TRISTAN, but may also produce dips in the DSNB which could be detectable. Such a detection would suggest the existence of a cosmologically-significant, strongly self-interacting sterile neutrino background, likely embedded in a richer dark sector.
The discovery of new, flavor-dependent neutrino interactions would provide compelling evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. We focus on interactions generated by the several anomaly-free, gauged, abelian lepton number symmetries that introduce a new matter potential sourced by electrons and neutrons, potentially impacting neutrino flavor oscillations. We estimate constraints on these interactions that can be placed via the flavor composition of the diffuse flux of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, with TeV-PeV energies, i.e., the proportion of $\nu_e$, $\nu_\mu$, and $\nu_\tau$ in the flux. Because we consider mediators of these new interactions to be ultra-light, lighter than $10^{-10}$ eV, the interaction range is ultra-long, from km to Gpc, allowing vast numbers of electrons and/or neutrons in celestial bodies and the cosmological matter distribution to contribute to this new potential. We leverage the present-day and future sensitivity of high-energy neutrino telescopes and of oscillation experiments to estimate the constraints that could be placed on the coupling strength of these interactions. We predict that the present flavor composition estimates from IceCube would be unable to put constraints on certain classes of symmetries. Meanwhile, for the other symmetries, the IceCube neutrino telescope demonstrates the potential to constrain flavor-dependent long-range interactions.
We also estimate improvement in the sensitivity due to the next-generation neutrino telescopes.
The Cosmic Neutrino Background (C$\nu$B) constitutes the last observable prediction of the standard cosmological model, which has yet to be detected directly. In this talk, I will discuss how the coherent scattering of neutrinos off dense neutron matter can lead to an additional cooling channel in neutron stars (NSs). I will then discuss the prediction of a boosted C$\nu$B flux on Earth from nearby NSs and the potential detection prospects in the case of a future nearby galactic supernova. Finally, I will explore the impact of new physics scenarios such as long-range forces, on NS cooling through the C$\nu$B.
The muon collider is an excellent prospect as a multi-TeV lepton collider, with the possibility for high luminosity and reach to 10 TeV centre-of-mass energy per parton. In order to realise high luminosity, high beam brightness is required. Ionisation cooling, which was demonstrated recently by the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE), is the technique proposed to realise sufficient brightness. MICE demonstrated transverse emittance reduction of incident beams having relatively high emittance and without beam reacceleration. The international Muon Collider Collaboration proposes a Demonstrator for Muon Cooling that will demonstrate six-dimensional emittance reduction over a number of cooling cells, operating at beam emittance close to the ultimate goal for the muon collider 6D cooling system. Together with a full R&D programme, this will pave the way for construction of a muon collider. In this paper, the latest developments in the Demonstrator design will be discussed, considering integration of requirements and constraints from beam physics, solenoid and RF cavity design, absorbers and windows.
The neutrinos from STORed Muons (nuSTORM) facility will create neutrino beams through muon decay in a storage ring, targeting %-level precision in flux determination. With access to two neutrino flavours, it enables precise measurement of 𝜈-A cross sections and exhibits sensitivity to Beyond Standard Model (BSM) physics. With muons in the 1– 6 GeV/c momentum range, it covers neutrino energy regimes relevant to experiments such as DUNE and T2HK. In addition, nuSTORM serves as a step towards a muon collider, a proof of concept for muon storage rings, and a test for beam monitoring and magnet technologies like FFAs. This paper provides an update on the status of the design and simulations of nuSTORM, including horn and lattice optimisations for the production and storage of low energy muons. Along with normalised fluxes, neutrino events and their rates at the detector at different energies are also presented. The creation of synthetic neutrino beams through the combination of beams produced using a variety of stored muon energies, similar to the PRISM technique to be implemented at DUNE and T2HK has also been discussed, allowing for much narrower spectra to aid cross section analysis.
The production of high-intensity muon beams is crucial for advancing particle and accelerator physics, both now and in the future. Achieving these high-intensity goals requires overcoming significant challenges in high-power targetry. This talk will address these challenges and present innovative solutions currently under investigation. We will explore the selection of target materials, focusing on their thermal and mechanical properties, as well as their resistance to radiation damage—key factors for enduring the intense energy deposition from high-power proton beams. The presentation will also showcase recent advancements in target design, including novel cooling techniques and material innovations that enhance durability and efficiency. The talk will conclude by outlining future directions, highlighting the potential of emerging materials and designs to improve muon yield and extend target longevity.
T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) is a Japan-based long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment designed to measure (anti)neutrino flavor oscillations. A muon (anti-)neutrino beam peaked around 0.6 GeV is produced in Tokai and directed toward the water Cherenkov far detector Super-Kamiokande (SK) located at 295 km. The ND280 is used to characterise the neutrino beam before the oscillation, and its data are used to tune the neutrino flux and cross-section models which are then used to predict the expected number of neutrinos at SK. This talk will discuss how the Near Detector contributes to the T2K neutrino oscillations analysis, including various recent improvements.
For the operation of precision neutrino experiments, the understanding of neutrino interactions with matter are preconditioned requirements of all detections and measurements of neutrinos. The largest uncertainties in estimating neutrino-nucleus interaction cross sections arise in the incomplete understanding of nuclear effects. In the study of neutrino oscillations and nuclear scattering processes, obtaining an interaction model with associated uncertainties is of sub- stantial interest for the neutrino physics community. This report presents studies of simulated CC 2p-2h interactions, in which a neutrino interacts with a bound pair of nucleons. This interaction mode is very poorly constrained by current data. A comparison of three leading CC 2p-2h models is presented, along with a number of uncertainty parameters that have been implemented to account for model-to-model discrepancies in the DUNE oscillation analysis.
The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is a crucial component of the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program, situated 110 meters from the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) target. This 112-ton Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) Near Detector is optimally positioned to investigate the potential existence of an additional flavor of neutrino through neutrino oscillation. Due to its proximity to the BNB target, the SBND is uniquely positioned to receive a high rate of un-oscillated neutrino events. This setup offers a valuable opportunity to examine exclusive channels, thereby enhancing our understanding of various neutrino interaction modes, aiding in the understanding and mitigation of various sources of uncertainties. By fully utilizing the detector's capabilities, we aim to mitigate significant uncertainties in neutrino oscillation studies, primarily those related to neutrino interactions and flux. Achieving a deeper understanding of these uncertainties and controlling them with near detector data is essential. In this talk I will present the SBND event selection to control these uncertainties for the SBN oscillation analyses.
NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that looks for the disappearance of muon (anti)neutrinos and the appearance of electron (anti)neutrinos in a beam of muon (anti)neutrinos. In addition to using Bayesian methods, NOvA employs a classical maximum-likelihood estimation to measure neutrino mixing parameters, determine the neutrino mass ordering, and search for CP violation in the lepton sector. To construct robust frequentist confidence intervals, we have developed a Monte Carlo-based method by extending the Feldman-Cousins method in the presence of nuisance parameters.
In this talk, we will describe the details of this Profiled Feldman-Cousins method, elucidating it in the context of the oscillation measurements at NOvA. We will present the impact of this method on the latest oscillation results from the NOvA, based on ten years of data collection with the NuMI beam at Fermilab.
This talk presents a Monte Carlo simulation implemented with the GiBUU model tailored for neutrino experiments. Specifically, we focus on its implementation in generating events in a generic liquid argon time projection chamber and compare the results with those from other neutrino event generators, such as GENIE. The simulation produces realistic neutrino event samples, contributing to the prediction and interpretation of experimental outcomes. Our results demonstrate the robust performance of the GiBUU-based simulation framework and highlight its fidelity to the original GiBUU cross-section model. Additionally, we present the status of developing infrastructure to calculate systematic uncertainties related to the GiBUU model.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next generation experiment aiming to answer a wide range of open questions in neutrino physics. Its broad program includes a long-baseline (LBL) neutrino oscillation analysis, whose goal is to measure neutrino oscillation parameters with unprecedented precision. The intense beam exposure, coupled with the size of the near and far detectors and liquid argon (LAr) detection capabilities, will enable DUNE to reduce its statistical uncertainties to the order of 1%. At this level of precision, systematic uncertainties will become the limiting factor for the DUNE LBL analysis.
The largest systematic uncertainties currently stem from the modeling of neutrino interactions with matter. Neutrinos interact with argon nuclei, which are complex systems and difficult to model. DUNE's wide energy spectrum also covers multiple interaction regimes and their transition regions, for which several models are available. However, no theoretical or generator model seems to describe experimental data across the entire phase space relevant for DUNE. For these reasons, sufficient freedom must be provided in the neutrino interaction uncertainty model.
This talk presents the latest developments in the systematic uncertainty model for the DUNE LBL sensitivity studies. The model is based on a flexible simulation of the nuclear ground state, making it possible to test its robustness against a large spectrum of alternative predictions. Additionally, the choice of systematic uncertainties based on natural freedoms of the input model, as well as ad-hoc freedoms allowing to account for additional effects which may impact the near to far detector extrapolation, is motivated.
Neutrino event generators make use of intranuclear cascade models (INCs), to predict the kinematics of hadron production in neutrino-nucleus interactions. We perform a consistent comparison of different INCs, by using the same set of events as input to the NEUT, NuWro, Achilles and INCL INCs. The inputs correspond to calculations of the fully differential single-proton knockout cross section, either in the distorted-wave impulse approximation (DWIA) or plane-wave impulse approximation (PWIA), both including realistic nuclear hole spectral functions. We compare the INC results to DWIA calculations with an optical potential, used extensively in the analysis of (e,e’p) experiments.
Nuclear effects in neutrino-nucleus scattering are one of the main sources of uncertainty in the analysis of neutrino oscillation experiments. Due to the extended neutrino energy distribution, very different reaction mechanisms contribute to the cross section at the same time. Measurements of muon momentum in CC0$\pi$ events are very important for experiments like T2K, where most of the information about the oscillation signal comes from detection of the final-state muons only. However, those inclusive measurements make difficult to distinguish the contributions of nuclear effects. For instance, they do not allow to separate between different nuclear models and are not sufficient to put constraints on the amount of two-body current contributions. This is the reason why there is a growing interest in measurements of more exclusive processes, for instance the detection in coincidence of a muon and an ejected proton in the final state. Interpretation of such reactions, usually called semi-inclusive reactions, is challenging as it requires realistic models of the initial nuclear state and an appropriate description of proton final-state interactions.
In this talk we're going to present the theoretical predictions of semi-inclusive $\nu_\mu$ cross sections on $^{12}$C and $^{40}$Ar obtained within an unfactorized approach based on the relativistic distorted wave impulse approximation (RDWIA) and compare them with T2K, MINER$\nu$A and MicroBooNE measurements and predictions of the inclusive SuSAv2-MEC model implemented in the neutrino event generator GENIE.
Dark matter direct detection experiments like XENONnT, PANDAX-4T and LUX-ZEPLIN are sensitive to solar neutrino-electron scatterings, neutrino-nucleus scattering, and potentially to the Migdal effect. I'll discuss how solar neutrino-electron scatterings allow to constrain the electromagnetic properties of neutrinos, further constraining neutrinophilic light dark sectors. Furthermore, I'll discuss how radioactive sources near these detectors could improve the sensitivity to the anapole moment of neutrinos significantly. Finally, I'll discuss prospects to detect new physics in the neutrino sector via the Migdal effect.
We examine solar neutrinos in dark matter detectors, focusing on flavor-dependent radiative corrections to the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) cross section within a three-flavor framework, incorporating matter effects from the Sun and Earth. Detectors with thresholds $\lesssim 1$ keV and exposures of $\sim 100$ ton-years could probe beyond-tree-level effects and offer unique insights into the muon and tau components of the solar neutrino flux. Recent CE$\nu$NS measurements by PandaX-4T and XENONnT provide sensitivity to non-standard interactions (NSI) and tau-flavor parameters, marking a significant advancement in neutrino physics. Complementary studies of neutrino-electron scattering in Borexino, and future data from JUNO, could further probe $\nu_\mu$ and $\nu_\tau$ contributions and test novel physics such as non-unitary evolution and U(1)$_{L_\mu-L_\tau}$ interactions.
Paleo-detectors utilize the fact that mineral lattices can retain deformations in their structure caused by charged particle interactions. We consider the search for proton decay, $p\rightarrow\overline{\nu}K^+$, in such detectors via the possible crystal damage produced by the endpoint of the charged kaon. Atmospheric neutrino induced backgrounds render this search impossible on Earth, but in a lunar environment with no atmosphere, this background is significantly suppressed. For a 100g, $10^9$ year-old (100kton$\cdot$yr exposure) piece of lunar olivine, we expect 0.5 kaon endpoints due to atmospheric neutrino backgrounds. If this lunar sample could be acquired and analyzed, the proton decay sensitivity would be $\tau_p\approx10^{34}$ years, which is competitive with Super-Kamiokande's currently published limit of $\tau_p>5.9\times 10^{33}$ years at 90% CL, as well as the projected range of Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE for the $p\rightarrow\overline{\nu}K^+$ channel.
The decay-at-rest of charged kaons produces monoenergetic muon neutrinos with an energy of 236 MeV. The study of these neutrinos at short baselines allows us to constrain new neutrino interactions. In this work, we study kaon decay-at-rest (KDAR) neutrinos at the \jsns experiment where the J-PARC Spallation Neutron Source (JSNS) will produce such types of neutrinos with decay-at-rest processes of pions, muons, and kaons. We use KDAR neutrino data from the experiment to probe the non-standard interactions of leptons with strange particles and demonstrate for the first time that \jsns can put very stringent bounds on the source NSI parameter $\epsilon^s_{\mu e}$ ; i.e. $|\epsilon^s_{\mu e}| < 0.03~ (0.005)$ at $99\%$ C.L. with current (future) statistics. We also explore the reach of the \jsns experiment to constrain the sterile neutrino parameters using KDAR neutrinos and compare our results with the other oscillation experiments. We find that the constraint on active sterile mixing can be as small as $|U_{\mu 4}|^2 \sim 10^{-3}$ for $\Delta m^2_{41} > 2 ~{\rm eV}^2$.
We present a comprehensive analysis of nonstandard neutrino interactions with the dark sector in an effective field theory (EFT) framework, considering exact analytic formulae for the differential scattering cross sections of neutrinos with scalar, fermionic, and vector dark matter (DM) for dark sector models with mediators of different spins. We then implement the full catalog of constraints on the parameter space of the neutrino-dark matter/mediator couplings and masses, including cosmological/astrophysical bounds coming from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, Cosmic Microwave Background, DM/neutrino self-interactions, DM collisional damping, thermal relic density, and SN1987A, as well as laboratory constraints from neutrinoless double decay, 3-body meson decays and invisible $Z$ decays. To illustrate the practical consequences of our new results, we take the galactic supernova neutrinos in the MeV energy range as a concrete example and highlight the difficulties in finding any observable effect of neutrino-DM interactions. Finally, we identify new benchmark points potentially promising for future observational prospects of the attenuation of the neutrino flux of a galactic supernova and comment on their implications for the detection prospects in future large-volume neutrino experiments such as DUNE, Hyper-K and JUNO.
T2K is a long-baseline experiment for the measurement of neutrino oscillations. The neutrino flux and neutrino-nucleus cross-sections are measured by a suite of near detectors, including ND280, an off-axis multipurpose magnetised detector, WAGASCI, featuring a water-enriched target at a different off-axis angle, and INGRID an on-axis detector composed of sandwiched layers of iron and scintillator.
The near detectors perform a wide variety of neutrino-nucleus cross-section measurements on different targets and for different final states. Such a program, to control systematic uncertainties for T2K and beyond, provides high-quality data to benchmark improved models of neutrino-nucleus scattering.
Recent T2K cross-section results will be presented.
MINERvA is a dedicated neutrino-nucleus interaction experiment at Fermilab that took data from 2009-2019. MINERvA has made, and continues to make a wide range of measurements that inform the development of neutrino-nucleus interaction models that are used in current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. MINERvA has a wide range of different target nuclei ranging from hydrogen (in the plastic scintillator) to helium to carbon to water to iron and lead. This talk will summarize the recent electron neutrino, pion production and Transverse Kinematic Imbalance cross-section results from MINERvA Experiment.
The Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC -- SND@LHC is a compact and stand-alone experiment to perform measurements with neutrinos produced at the LHC in a hitherto unexplored pseudo-rapidity region of $7.2 < \eta < 8.4$, complementary to all the other experiments at the LHC. The experiment is located 480 m downstream of IP1 in the unused TI18 tunnel. The detector is composed of a hybrid system based on an 800 kg target mass of tungsten plates, interleaved with emulsion and electronic trackers, followed downstream by a calorimeter and a muon system. The configuration allows efficiently distinguishing between all three neutrino flavours, opening a unique opportunity to probe physics of heavy flavour production at the LHC in the region that is not accessible to ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. This region is of particular interest also for future circular colliders and for predictions of very high-energy atmospheric neutrinos. The detector concept is also well suited to searching for Feebly Interacting Particles via signatures of scattering in the detector target. The first phase aims at operating the detector throughout LHC Run 3 to collect a total of 150 fb$^{−1}$. The presentation will focus on the results of the data taken in 2022-2023 and report the status of the analysis of 2024 data.
The NINJA experiment aims to measure neutrino-nucleus scattering using the J-PARC neutrino beam in the energy range of sub-GeV to a few-GeV. The NINJA detector comprises nuclear emulsion films interleaved with target materials, offering submicron spatial resolution and precise measurement of charged particles, particularly with the proton momentum threshold of 200 MeV/c.
We have collected data on neutrino interactions with water and iron target materials so far. The first and second physics runs, utilizing the target masses of 150 kg iron and 75 kg water, were conducted from November 2019 to February 2020 and from November 2023 to February 2024, respectively. The total effective P.O.T. in the NINJA detector is $7.6 \times 10^{20}$.
In this talk, we present the recent analysis results of the NINJA experiment.
Using the NOvA near Detector, the NOvA collaboration is able to measure a number of neutrino scattering processes.
A storage ring proton electric dipole moment (EDM) experiment (pEDM) would be the first direct search for a proton EDM and would improve on the current (indirect) limit by 5 orders of magnitude. It would surpass the current sensitivity (set by neutron EDM experiments) to QCD CP-violation by 3 orders of magnitude, making it potentially the most promising effort to solve the strong CP problem, and one of the most important probes for the existence of axions, CP-violation and the source of the universe’s matter-antimatter asymmetry. These, coupled with a new Physics reach of $O(10^3)$ TeV and a construction cost of $O$(£100M), makes it one of the low-cost/high-return proposals in particle physics today. The experiment will build upon the highly successful techniques of the Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab and, in this talk, I will motivate and describe the pEDM experiment, and detail its path to success by building upon previous recent achievements.
We propose here a set of new methods to directly detect light mass dark matter through its scattering with abundant atmospheric muons or accelerator beams. Firstly, we plan to use the free cosmic-ray muons interacting with dark matter in a volume surrounded by tracking detectors, to trace possible interaction between dark matter and muons. Secondly, we will interface our device with domestic or international muon beams. Due to much larger muon intensity and focused beam, we anticipate the detector can be made further compact and the resulting sensitivity on dark matter searches will be improved. Furthermore, we will measure precisely directional distributions of cosmic-ray muons, either at mountain or sea level, and the differences may reveal possible information of dark matter distributed near the earth. Specifically, our methods can have advantages over `exotic' dark matters which are either muon-philic or slowed down due to some mechanism, and sensitivity on dark matter and muon scattering cross section can reach as low as microbarn level.
Based on arXiv:2402.13483, which is accepted by Phys. ReV. D for publication.
The smallness of neutrino masses in conjunction with the observed flavor oscillations in the neutrino sector can be hinting to physics beyond the standard model. These observations can be naturally accommodated by the so-called "seesaw" mechanism, in which new Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNL) are postulated. Additionally, several HNL models provide a DM candidate or include a possible explanation for the observed baryon asymmetry. This talk presents an comprehensive overview of the CMS HNL program with a focus on the new experimental results as shown in a recently published review paper by CMS.The talk will highlight several novel and complementary approaches using both prompt and long-lived signatures using the full Run-II data-set collected at the LHC.
I will discuss $\mu \rightarrow e$ conversion signatures stemming from light new physics at high-intensity muon experiments. Specifically, I'll focus on the discovery potential and reach of the $\mu \rightarrow 5e$ channel at Mu3e as well as the prospect of 'signal' electrons from muon-induced baryon number violation at Mu2e and COMET.
Dark Matter (DM) is one of the most interesting research topics in physics. Many particle physicists are trying to identify it because we know that dark matter is likely to be a major component of a complete fundamental description of nature. The Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab measures the anomalous precession frequency of the muon. Oscillations of this precession frequency could be produced by DM coupling to muons. This talk will describe how we could observe DM signals in the Muon g-2 data. I will describe the analysis strategies throughout the DM mass range and explain how we determine the sensitivity. Finally, I will show laboratory limits for the DM coupling constant with muons in selected DM model-dependent scenarios.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) aims to make precision measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters. To accomplish this, new technologies must be utilized at the DUNE Near Detector to handle characterizing the intense neutrino beam. We are testing a novel Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) detector prototype with a modularized setup, composed of 4 modules each with 2 TPC planes that utilize a pixel readout that provides native 3D imaging. To aid in particle tracking, the MINERvA detector has been repurposed as an upstream and downstream muon tracker surrounding the LArTPC prototype detector placed in the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab. A dedicated Machine Learning reconstruction is in development to reconstruct the novel, modular 3D particle signatures in the LArTPC. This talk will show its current performance to cluster and classify particles, and explore the impact of expanding the input to include the MINERvA auxiliary detectors.
Machine learning algorithms have long been utilized across many experimental collaborations within the neutrino physics community in applications to ascertain the singular kinematic quantity of initial neutrino energy for use in neutrino oscillation analyses. However, most of these algorithms do not incorporate a coherent physical picture of initial neutrino kinematics, opting to introduce loss functions involving knowledge of only $\left| p_{\nu} \right|$. Here, we argue for the introduction of composite loss functions utilizing the full kinematic description of the neutrino, $p_{\nu} \equiv \left( E, p_x, p_y, p_z \right)$, compiling all relevant energy and angle information consistently. The use of such a fully defined variable can be seen as a usage of Physics Informed Machine Learning.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in the US. It will have four far detector modules, each holding 17 kilotons of liquid argon. These modules sit 1500 meters underground and 1300 kilometers from the near detector complex. The Vertical Drift (VD) detector module will feature X-ARAPUCA photon detectors installed on the cathode plane and the cryostat membrane. The VD photon detection system (PDS) will provide both timing and calorimetric energy measurement. In this talk I will present a study on neutron capture on 40Ar utilizing commercial pulsed neutron source (PNS). The most common gamma cascade from the excited 41Ar has a total energy release of 6.1 MeV and serves as a standard candle for PDS energy calibration. Tagging the neutron capture event allows us to derive a reliable light yield map for light calorimetry. The test is done at the CERN VD ColdBox test facility. The ColdBox cryostat has dimensions of 3 × 3 × 1 m^3 and is filled with LAr, where the X-ARAPUCA photon detectors are installed on a cathode surface. The distance between the anode and cathode plane is ~22 cm, with high voltage (10 kV) applied, allowing for vertical drift. The PNS physics run benefits DUNE low energy physics program in many ways. The energy resolution of MeV electron neutrino charged current events suffers from neutron emission. A fixed binding energy is lost when a neutron is knocked out of the argon nucleus followed by the subsequent neutron capture. Efficient tagging of the neutron capture could thus improve energy resolution. This will help for example the diffused supernova neutrino background search. Meanwhile, identifying the neutron capture signature helps reject cavern neutron backgrounds. Developing such a neutron capture tagging technique at CERN VD ColdBox and ProtoDUNE-VD is crucial for advancing the DUNE physics program.
The NOvA Experiment is designed to study neutrino oscillations utilizing Fermilab’s “Neutrinos from the Main Injector” (NuMI) beam. The experiment features a near detector located at Fermilab and a far detector located in Ash River, Minnesota. The NOvA Test Beam program aims to enhance the physics reach of NOvA by improving understanding of systematic uncertainties associated with the detector technology used in the experiment. Our goal within the Test Beam program is to measure the energy response of the Test Beam detector as a function of incident kinetic energy for electrons. This measurement has the potential to reduce the uncertainties associated with reconstruction of neutrino events in NOvA that have electrons in the final state. This could in turn improve the uncertainties associated with the far detector’s $\nu_{e}$ appearance measurement. This would benefit a broad range of physics capability of the experiment.
The NOvA experiment, a long-baseline neutrino experiment, uses two detectors: one located at Fermilab and another at Ash River, Minnesota. The Near Detector, situated approximately 100 meters underground, observes cosmic muons at a rate of ~35 Hz, while the Far Detector, located on the surface, observes cosmic muons at a rate of ~150 kHz. The rate of cosmic muons exhibits seasonal variation due to the interplay between the decay and interaction of pions and kaons in cosmic showers, reaching a maximum in summer and a minimum in winter.
In 2015, the MINOS experiment published results on the variation of cosmic muon rates, distinguishing between single and multiple muons. Notably, the multiple muon rate demonstrated an opposite seasonal behavior compared to single muons, with a maximum in winter and a minimum in summer. This effect has also been observed in the NOvA experiment using both near and far detector data. In this presentation, I will show the observed variations in cosmic multiple muon rates and provide a possible explanation for the opposite behavior of single and multiple muons using CORSIKA simulation.
DUNE's ability to detect and study astrophysical neutrinos will critically depend on the capability of liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) to reconstruct particle interactions that deposit extremely small amounts of energy in the active LAr. MicroBooNE has demonstrated reconstruction capabilities for energy depositions at the ~MeV and sub-MeV scale, which manifest as isolated "blips" on the TPC wire planes spanning only a few readout channels. Using R&D data where MicroBooNE's LAr was doped with radon, new software tools were used to identify the beta and alpha decay products of progeny isotopes bismuth-214 and polonium-214. Measuring the rate of these correlated decays under different filtration configurations revealed that liquid-phase electronegative filters effectively mitigate radon contamination. Further studies using novel background subtraction techniques produced calorimetric energy spectra of these decay products, showcasing sensitivity down to ~100 keV in electron-equivalent energy. These tools were then applied to standard data-taking conditions to set a radiopurity limit for ambient bismuth-214, the first of its kind for a large single-phase liquid-filtered LArTPC.
The phenomenon of neutrino oscillation is of great theoretical and experimental interest for our
understand of the nature of the neutrino and its implication for physics beyond the standard Model.
Currently available neutrino oscillation experiments can already constrain neutrino mixing parameters
with a confidence level up to 3 standard deviations ($\sigma$). However, it remains challenging to provide a
deterministic constraint on the Charge-Parity (CP) violation phase of the neutrino mixing matrix. Here,
we propose an experimental setup that exploits collimated muon beams to probe neutrino CP-
violation. In our proposed acceleration experiment, a 45 GeV positron source with additional muon
collimation, interfaces with near-future neutrino detectors like DUNE and T2K, to probe neutrino CP-
violation phase with a significantly higher sensitivity than obtained with the neutrino detectors alone,
and to determine tau neutrino properties. Simulations estimate the collection of 10 4 tau (anti-) neutrino
in 5 years, and a sensitivity of over 7 standard deviations for $\delta_{CP}$ = $|\pi/2|$ in 5 years. Collecting $\nu_{\tau}$
appearance events from $\mu^-$ and $\mu^+$ beams over 10 years can attain a 3-4 standard deviation sensitivity.
This proposal may serve as a tau factory.
Accelerator-based neutrino experiments estimate neutrino fluxes using detailed simulations of their beamlines. Models of hadronic interactions of the primary beams with their target and secondary interactions are the dominant source of systematic uncertainty in modern flux predictions. The NA61/SHINE experiment at CERN is providing precise measurements that will constrain these uncertainties. Measurements of hadron yields from a thin carbon target and a T2K replica
target have allowed for a significant reduction of T2K (anti)neutrino flux uncertainties to about 5%. In addition to many thin-target datasets, the experiment has also collected data on a NuMI replica target and will collect data on a DUNE prototype target in Summer 2024. Recent results from NA61/SHINE's neutrino program will be presented, as well as plans for future measurements.
EMPHATIC (Experiment to Measure the Production of Hadrons At a Test beam In
Chicagoland) is a table-top size experiment at Fermilab focused on hadron production measurements relevant to reducing the total neutrino flux uncertainties at accelerator-based neutrino experiments. The goals of the experiment include addressing the gaps in our understanding of hadron-scattering and the first-ever measurement of the hadron spectrum downstream of a neutrino beam target and horn. Recent progress from EMPHATIC will be discussed, including a first proof-of-principle measurement and collection of a large catalog of thin-target data. Plans for EMPHATIC over the next few years, including measurements with a replica NuMI target and horn will also be presented.
In accelerator-based neutrino experiments, uncertainties in neutrino flux represent a significant systematic uncertainty in baseline predictions for both near and far detectors, as well as in single-detector measurements such as neutrino cross sections and in Beyond Standard Model searches. These uncertainties stem from interaction models in the hadronic processes that follows the primary interacting proton from accelerators until the produced mesons decaying into neutrinos. Data from hadron production experiments are essential to predict the neutrino flux and its uncertainties. However, significant uncertainties remain due to interactions at phase spaces and materials that have never been measured.
Existing data are being used to significantly constrain the flux prediction in experiments using the NuMI and BNB beams (FNAL) and in the T2K experiment (J-PARC). However, as we enter a precise era with experiments such as DUNE and Hyper-K, which will be primarily dominated by systematics, better control of them is imperative. Experiments such as EMPHATIC (FNAL) and NA61 (CERN) aim to make new measurements to improve flux predictions.
This talk will review the current applications of hadron production measurements in neutrino experiments, and discuss the need for new measurements to improve neutrino flux predictions to enhance the robustness of the physics program.
The description of neutrino-nucleus interactions in the few-GeV regimes constitutes the dominant source of systematic uncertainty for current and future long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. In this work, based on the recent manuscript available at arXiv:2407.10962, neutrino-nucleus cross-section measurements of transverse kinematic imbalance from the T2K, MicroBooNE and MINERvA experiments are used together to benchmark predictions from widely used neutrino interaction event generators. Given the different neutrino energy spectra and nuclear targets employed by the three experiments, comparisons of model predictions to their measurements break degeneracies that would be present in any single measurement. In particular, the comparison of T2K and MINERvA measurements offers a probe of energy dependence, whilst a comparison of T2K and MicroBooNE investigates A-scaling effects. In order to isolate the impact of individual nuclear effects, model comparisons are made following systematic alterations to: the nuclear ground state; final state interactions and multi-nucleon emission strength. The measurements are further compared to the generators used as an input to DUNE/SBN and T2K/Hyper-K neutrino oscillation measurements. Whilst no model is able to quantitatively describe all the measurements, evidence is found for mis-modelling of A-scaling in multi-nucleon interactions and it is found that tight control over how energy is distributed among hadrons following final state interactions is likely to be crucial to achieving improved agreement. Overall, this work provides a novel characterization of neutrino interactions whilst offering guidance for refining existing generator predictions.
Tens of MeV neutrinos, such as those from stopped pion or core-collapse supernova sources, interact with target nuclei in detectors through either coherent elastic or inelastic scattering processes. These interactions provide valuable insights into various Standard Model and Beyond the Standard Model phenomena, with significant implications for nuclear physics, particle physics, and astrophysics.The precision of coherent elastic scattering, where the nucleus remains in its ground state, depends on the accuracy of the underlying weak form factor of the nucleus. In contrast, inelastic scattering, where neutrinos excite the target nucleus to low-lying nuclear states, involves complex nuclear structures and dynamics and are quite poorly constrained. Moreover, these low-energy processes also have implications for neutrino-nucleus scattering of GeV energy neutrino beams. In this talk, I will present an overview of the field, highlight recent advancements, and outline future directions.
We study neutrino and antineutrino induced eta production from the free nucleon and nuclear targets. The hadronic current receives contribution from the background terms as well as from the nucleon and delta resonance excitations. We have considered only those nucleon/delta resonances which are present in the PDG having spin ≤ 3/2 and mass in the range < 2 GeV with significant branching ratio in any particular meson decay mode. In the neutrino induced processes, the weak hadronic current contains the vector as well as the axial vector current. The vector current of the weak interaction is related to the electromagnetic current through the conserved vector current (CVC) hypothesis and for the axial vector current, PCAC and the Goldberger-Treiman relation are used. The $Q^2$ dependent form factors from the electroproduction are used to determine the weak vector form factors in the vector current and for the axial vector current, generally a dipole form factor is assumed. The couplings at the strong $g_{NN\eta}$ and $g_{RN\eta}$ vertices determined in the case of meson photoproduction, would be used for the strong couplings of the neutrino induced meson production. Thus, in the neutrino induced meson production, the couplings and the form factors from the photoproduction and electroproduction, respectively, will be used as inputs.
Moreover, when the production of eta mesons takes place from the nuclear targets, the nuclear medium effects comes into picture. In our numerical calculations, we have taken into account the effect the Fermi motion and Pauli blocking as well as the effect of width broadening of the $S_{11}(1535)$ resonance. The produced eta meson while travelling through the nuclear medium may interact with the residual nucleus and gets absorbed inside the nuclear medium, therefore, we have also taken into account the final state interaction effects on the produced eta mesons. We shall present the results for the total and differential scattering cross sections for the production of eta mesons from the free nucleons as well as from the nucleon bounds inside the nuclear medium relevant for MicroBooNE and DUNE experiments. This talk will be based on our recent publications Phys. Rev. D 108, 053009 (2023) and Phys. Rev. D 107, 033002 (2023).
In this talk, we investigate the impact of nucleon-nucleon in-medium modifications on neutrino-nucleus cross section predictions using the GiBUU transport model. Historically studied in the context of heavy-ion collisions, the extent to which free nucleon-nucleon forces are modified in-medium remains undetermined by those data sets. We find that including an in-medium lowering of the NN cross section and density dependence on $\Delta$ excitation improves agreement with MicroBooNE neutrino-argon scattering data. This is observed for both proton and neutral pion spectra in charged-current muon neutrino and neutral-current single pion production datasets. The impact of collision broadening of the $\Delta$ resonance is also investigated.
Making high-precision measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters requires an unprecedented understanding of neutrino-nucleus scattering. To help fulfill this need, MicroBooNE has produced an extensive set of multi-differential charged-current muon neutrino cross-section measurements which probe both the leptonic and hadronic systems. This talk will present the first energy-dependent multi-differential cross-section measurement and simultaneous measurements of final states with and without protons for the inclusive channel. Furthermore, to more directly probe the nuclear effects which complicate the modeling of neutrino-argon interactions, we present the first charged current double-differential cross-sections in kinematic imbalance variables using events with no detected final-state pions. These variables characterize both the transverse and total kinematic imbalance in a neutrino interaction and are sensitive to the modeling of final-state interactions, Fermi motion, and multi-nucleon processes.
The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is one of three Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detectors positioned along the axis of the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab, as part of the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program. The detector is currently being commissioned and is collecting neutrino beam data. SBND is characterized by superb imaging capabilities and will record over a million neutrino interactions per year. Thanks to its unique combination of measurement resolution and statistics, SBND will carry out a rich program of neutrino interaction measurements and novel searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). It will enable the potential of the overall SBN sterile neutrino program by performing a precise characterization of the unoscillated event rate, and constraining BNB flux and neutrino-argon cross-section systematic uncertainties. In this talk, the physics reach, current status, and future prospects of SBND are discussed.
The ICARUS collaboration first employed the 760-ton T600 detector in a successful three-year physics run at the underground LNGS laboratory in the CERN Neutrino to Gran Sasso beam. Then after a significant overhaul at CERN, the T600 detector was installed at Fermilab as the far detector for the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program at Fermilab. The SBN program is designed to definitively test the sterile neutrino hypothesis of the MiniBooNE anomaly with the Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) and ICARUS. The cryogenic cool down, liquid argon fill, and detector commissioning began in 2020 and the commissioning period completed in 2022. ICARUS collects neutrino events from both the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam off-axis at Fermilab. The physics goals of the initial BNB data is a single-detector sterile oscillation measurement to set the stage for a joint analysis using ICARUS and SBND in the future. ICARUS can also perform neutrino-argon cross section measurements and Beyond the Standard Model physics searches using the NuMI beam off-axis. In this talk, the first results from ICARUS data taken with both the BNB and NuMI beams are presented, showing the ability of the ICARUS detector to select and reconstruct neutrino events from the beams.
The JSNS2 (J-PARC Sterile Neutrino Search at the J-PARC Spallation NeutronSource) experiment is
searching for neutrino oscillations over a short 24 m baseline with Δm2 near 1 eV square.
We took the long physics runs in 2021,2022,2023 and 2024 with ~40% of approved POT by J-PARC.
We’re doing analysis from those data, and we have a few new results; such as the side-band analysis of the sterile neutrinos search, observation of the carbon and electron-neutrino interacted events, and the KDAR neutrinos measurement. In this presentation, we will show them in detail.
The MicroBooNE experiment utilizes a liquid-argon time projection chamber to detect neutrinos both on-axis from Fermilab’s Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and off-axis from the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam. MicroBooNE is investigating the observed anomalous excess of electron neutrino events reported by the MiniBooNE experiment. In this presentation, we report on searches for electron neutrinos motivated by the observed anomalous excess of electron neutrino events reported by the MiniBooNE experiment. We use the full 5-year dataset of 11e20 POT collected with the BNB by MicroBooNE to search for an excess of electron neutrino events as a direct test of the MiniBooNE excess. This updated analysis investigates an excess in several kinematic variables (neutrino energy, electron energy, and electron angle) and excludes this interpretation at > 99% CL. Additionally, we report on the status of the world’s first dual beam analysis which combines data from both BNB and NuMI to search for short-baseline oscillation signals. This analysis leverages the beams’ substantially different flavor content to greatly enhance the experiment’s sensitivity to eV-scale sterile neutrinos in the 3+1 framework.
STEREO is a high-precision experiment that studies the antineutrinos produced by the highly enriched U-235 core of the nuclear reactor at the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France. The experiment aims to investigate two key anomalies observed in previous reactor neutrino experiments. The first anomaly, known as the "Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly (RAA)," involves a discrepancy in the measured flux of antineutrinos from reactors. STEREO has tested the sterile neutrino hypothesis as a possible explanation for this anomaly through a model-independent oscillation analysis conducted at a very short baseline of 9-11 meters, using a segmented liquid scintillator detector composed of six identical cells, and utilizing the inverse β decay (IBD) process.
STEREO has achieved an accurate calculation of the absolute antineutrino rate, with a good control of uncertainties as 1.4% of thermal power.
The second anomaly concerns the shape of the antineutrino energy spectrum, where an excess of events around 5 MeV—known as the "Bump"—was observed. Through a thorough analysis of the detector's response, STEREO has accurately characterized the antineutrino spectrum, which will serve as an important benchmark for other neutrino physics experiments.
This presentation provides an overview of the STEREO experiment, the latest results, and future research directions.
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) will be a 20-kiloton liquid scintillator detector, currently under construction in southern China. JUNO will be equipped with 17,612 20-inch photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and 25,600 3-inch PMTs and will address a variety of physics programs including reactor/atmospheric/solar/geo/supernova neutrino observations and new physics searches. The calibration of the JUNO detector is one of the critical components to accomplish the primary experimental goal, the determination of the neutrino mass ordering by precisely measuring the reactor neutrino energy spectrum, as the accurate understanding of the energy scale ($1\%$ level) and unprecedented energy resolution as a liquid scintillator detector ($3\%$ at 1 MeV) are required. This talk will cover the JUNO calibration hardware systems and analysis strategy to achieve the aforementioned calibration requirements as well as the recent progress on the new calibration source development.
The main goal of the long-baseline experiment T2K is a search for CP violation in neutrino oscillations. To obtain a better sensitivity, T2K upgraded the near neutrino detector. A novel 3D highly granular scintillator detector called SuperFGD of a mass of about 2 tons was built, installed into ND280 magnet and commissioned with the neutrino beam. It will serve as a fully-active neutrino target, a 4\pi detector of charged particles and neutrons from neutrino interactions. SuperFGD consists of about two million small optically-isolated plastic scintillator cubes with a 1 cm side. Each cube is read out in the three orthogonal directions with wavelength shifting fibers coupled to compact photosensors, micro pixel photon counters (MPPCs). The fully equipped SuperFGD successfully took physics data with muon neutrinos in June 2024. In this talk, the main SuperFGD parameters, detection and reconstruction of neutrino events, and its performance in the neutrino beam will be presented.
ICEBERG is a liquid argon time projection chamber at Fermilab for the purpose of testing detector components and software for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). The detector features a 1.15m x 1m anode plane following the specifications of the DUNE horizontal drift far detector and a newly installed X-ARAPUCA photodetector. The status of ICEBERG will be reported along with analysis of noise, pulser, and cosmic ray data from the current ninth run beginning June 2024 with the goal of advising the DUNE collaboration on the optimal wire readout electronics configuration. In addition, development of an absolute energy scale calibration method is currently underway using known sources such as cosmic ray muon Michel electrons at the ~10 MeV scale and $^{39}$Ar decay electrons at the ~100 keV scale. Research into AI-based identification of such events at the data acquisition level will be presented.
The Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) technology is widely used in neutrino experiments and beyond the standard model physics searches such as nucleon decay and dark matter. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will employ the LArTPC technology at an unprecedented scale for physics programs, benefiting from its large target mass and excellent imaging, tracking, and particle identification capabilities. In DUNE, accurate energy reconstruction is important for precisely measuring CP violation, determining neutrino mass ordering and fully utilising the detector’s capabilities. The energy calibration techniques developed for the DUNE far detector (FD) horizontal drift are presented, utilising stopping cosmic-ray muons and validating the methods with the stopping pions and protons. The study demonstrates the versatility of the calibration techniques, applicable to other LArTPC, and valid for different particles. The electromagnetic shower energy reconstruction from $\pi^{0} \rightarrow 2\gamma$ events and the subsequent reconstruction of $\pi^{0}$ mass are also presented. These are important calibrations which address the measurement of energy loss in the DUNE FD volume and are critical for achieving the exciting physics goals of the experiment.
The limitations of the Standard Model in explaining neutrino masses and neutrino mixing leads
to the exploration of frameworks beyond the Standard Model (BSM). The possibility of neutrinos
interacting with fermions via a scalar mediator is one of the interesting prospects. The study of
neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI) is a well-motivated phenomenological scenario to explore
new physics beyond the Standard Model. These new interactions may alter the standard neutrino
oscillation probabilities, potentially leading to observable effects in experiments. It also allows for
the exploration of absolute neutrino masses via oscillation experiments. It can modify the oscillation
probabilities, which in turn can affect the physics sensitivities in long-baseline experiments. The linear scaling of the effects of scalar NSI with matter density also motivates its exploration in long-baseline (LBL) experiments.
We will present our study on the impact of a scalar-mediated NSI on the mass ordering (MO) sensitivities of three long-baseline neutrino experiments, i.e., DUNE, HK and KNO. We study the impact on MO sensitivities at these experiments assuming that scalar NSI parameters are present in nature and are known from other non-LBL experiments. The presence of scalar NSI can notably impact the MO sensitivities of these experiments. Furthermore, we analyze the potential synergy by combining data from DUNE with HK and HK+KNO, thereby exploring a broader parameter space.
We study the possibility of measuring T (time reversal) violation in a future
long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. By assuming a neutrino factory as a
staging scenario of a muon collider at the J-PARC site, we find that the \nu_e → \nu_\mu oscillation probabilities can be measured with a good accuracy at the Hyper-
Kamiokande detector. By comparing with the probability of the time-reversal
process, \nu_\mu → \nu_e, measured at the T2K/T2HK experiments, one can determine
the CP phase δ in the neutrino mixing matrix if | sin(δ)| is large enough. The
determination of δ can be made with poor knowledge of the matter density of the
earth as T violation is almost insensitive to the matter effects. The comparison
of CP and T-violation measurements, `a la the CPT theorem, provides us with
a non-trivial check of the three neutrino paradigm based on the quantum field
theory.
Upcoming neutrino experiments will soon search for new neutrino interactions more thoroughly than ever before, boosting the prospects of extending the Standard Model. In anticipation of this, we forecast the capability of two of the leading long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, DUNE and T2HK, to look for new flavor-dependent neutrino interactions with electrons, protons, and neutrons that could affect the transitions between different flavors. We interpret their sensitivity in the context of long-range neutrino interactions, mediated by a new neutral boson lighter than $10^{-10}$ eV, and sourced by the vast amount of nearby and distant matter in the Earth, Moon, Sun, Milky Way, and beyond. For the first time, we explore the sensitivity of DUNE and T2HK to a wide variety of $U(1)^\prime$ symmetries, built from combinations of lepton and baryon numbers, each of which induces new interactions that affect oscillations differently. We find ample sensitivity: in all cases, DUNE and T2HK may constrain the existence of the new interaction even if it is supremely feeble, may discover it, and, in some cases, may identify the symmetry responsible for it.
Discovering new neutrino interactions would represent evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. We focus on new flavor-dependent long-range neutrino interactions mediated by ultra-light mediators, with masses below $10^{-10}$~eV, introduced by new lepton-number gauge symmetries $L_e-L_\mu$, $L_e-L_\tau$, and $L_\mu-L_\tau$. Because the interaction range is ultra-long, nearby and distant matter --- primarily electrons and neutrons --- in the Earth, Moon, Sun, Milky Way, and the local Universe, may source a large matter potential that modifies neutrino oscillation probabilities. The upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) and the Tokai-to-Hyper-Kamiokande (T2HK) long-baseline neutrino experiments will provide an opportunity to search for these interactions, thanks to their high event rates and well-characterized neutrino beams. We forecast their probing power. Our results reveal novel perspectives. Alone, DUNE and T2HK may strongly constrain long-range interactions, setting new limits on their coupling strength for mediators lighter than $10^{-18}$~eV. However, if the new interactions are subdominant, then both DUNE and T2HK, together, will be needed to discover them, since their combination lifts parameter degeneracies that weaken their individual sensitivity. DUNE and T2HK, especially when combined, provide a valuable opportunity to explore physics beyond the Standard Model.
We investigate the effect on neutrino oscillations generated by new physics interactions between neutrinos and matter. Specifically, we focus on scalar-mediated nonstandard interactions (NSI) whose impact fundamentally differs from that of vector-mediated NSI. Scalar NSI contribute as corrections to the neutrino mass matrix rather than the matter potential and thereby predict distinct phenomenology from the vector-mediated ones. Similar to vector-type NSI, the presence of scalar-mediated neutrino NSI can influence measurements of oscillation parameters in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, with a notable impact on CP measurement in the case of DUNE. Our study focuses on the effect of scalar NSI on neutrino oscillations, using DUNE as an example. We introduce a model-independent parameterization procedure that enables the examination of the impact of all non-zero scalar NSI parameters simultaneously. Subsequently, we convert DUNE’s sensitivity to the NSI parameters into projected sensitivity concerning the parameters of a light scalar model. We compare these results with existing non-oscillation probes. Our findings reveal that the region of the light scalar parameter space sensitive to DUNE is predominantly excluded by non-oscillation probes, except for scenarios with very light mediator mass.
The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is a 100-ton scale Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detector positioned in the Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermilab, as part of the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program. The detector is currently being commissioned and is collecting neutrino beam data. Located only 110 m from the neutrino production target, it will be exposed to a very high flux of neutrinos and will collect millions of neutrino interactions each year. This huge number of neutrino interactions with the precise tracking and calorimetric capabilities of LArTPC will enable a wealth of cross section measurements with unprecedented precision. In addition, SBND has the unique characteristic of being remarkably close to the neutrino source and not perfectly aligned with the neutrino beamline, in such a way that allows sampling of multiple neutrino fluxes using the same detector, a feature known as SBND-PRISM. SBND-PRISM can be utilized to study distinctive neutrino-nucleus interactions channels. This talk will present the current status of the experiment along with expectations for a rich cross section program ahead.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that will feature liquid argon time projection chamber technology for its near and far detectors. The liquid argon near detector (ND-LAr) is designed to handle the high intensity expected from the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) beam using optically-separated TPC volumes, a pixel-based 3D charge readout, and scintillation light readout to identify the dozens of neutrino interactions per beam spill. The 2x2 Demonstrator is a prototype for ND-LAr to test the multi-TPC design placed in the NuMI beam at Fermilab using four modules and repurposed MINERvA tracking planes up and downstream of the LAr volume. In addition to demonstrating the detector technology, the 2x2 Demonstrator will perform measurements of neutrino interactions on argon relevant for the DUNE physics program and serve as a proving ground for measurements using the full ND-LAr detector. Neutrino interaction measurements are an important input to the oscillation analysis for constraining the systematic uncertainties and achieving DUNE’s goals of measuring delta-CP. This talk will discuss the capabilities of the 2x2 Demonstrator and the planned physics program.
Understanding neutrino-argon interactions with final-state pions or rare processes is vital for current and future argon-based neutrino experiments. In particular, interactions with pions will dominate the event rate observed at the forthcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and will be major backgrounds to appearance searches. Meanwhile, rare final states, such as those including Λ, K, and η hadrons, provide unique sensitivities to the interplay between nucleon-level cross-section physics and nuclear-level physics and correspond to some of the most dominant backgrounds that will be observed at forthcoming high-precision neutrino experiments. MicroBooNE, a liquid argon time projection chamber, can measure these interactions. This talk showcases MicroBooNE’s measurements on argon for neutrino events resulting in the production of pions and rare topologies in the final state.
The ICARUS experiment, utilizing Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LAr TPC) technology, has been installed at Fermilab in Chicago, Illinois, following its initial operation in Italy and subsequent refurbishment at CERN. ICARUS has successfully been taking physics data at Fermilab since June 2022. While the experiment's primary objective is to function as the far detector of the Short-Baseline Neutrino program (SBN), searching for hints of physics beyond three-flavour PMNS neutrino oscillations, ICARUS also offers other diverse physics capabilities, including searches beyond the standard model and measurements of cross-sections. In addition to being exposed to the common Booster Neutrino (BNB) beamline of the SBN experiment, ICARUS receives neutrinos from the Main Injector (NuMI) beam. Due to the off-axis angle between NuMI and ICARUS, coupled with contributions from both pion and kaon decays to neutrino fluxes, interactions of NuMI neutrinos within ICARUS can be detected over a range of several GeV in energy. Measurements of these interactions present unqiue opportunities to infer neutrino interaction cross sections on an argon nuclear target within an energy range that overlaps both the SBN oscillation search and a significnat portion of the DUNE spectrum. This presentation will summarise the current status of ICARUS' muon-neutrino cross-section measurements, highlighting our first analysis where the signal is defined by events with no pions produced in the final state of the interaction and correlations between an outgoing lepton and proton are measured.
Mu2e will search for coherent, neutrinoless conversion of muons into electrons in the nucleus field of aluminum with a sensitivity improvement of a factor of 10,000 over existing limits. Probing the charged lepton flavor-violating reaction at such sensitivity may uncover new physics at a scale unreachable by direct searches at current or planned high-energy colliders. The experiment complements and extends the current studies at MEG-II and the LHC. I will present the physics motivation for Mu2e, as well as the design and construction status of the experiment.
Should muon-to-electron conversion in the field of a nucleus be found in the current generation of experiments, the measurement of the atomic
number dependence of the process will become an important experimental
goal. We present a new treatment of the (Z,A) dependence of coherent
muon-to-electron conversion in 236 isotopes. Our approach differs from
earlier work in several ways. Firstly, we include the effect of
permanent quadrupole deformation on the charged lepton flavor violating
matrix elements, using the method of Barrett moments. This method also
enables the addition of muonic X-ray nuclear size and shape
determinations of the charge distribution to the electron scattering
results used previously. Secondly, we employ a Hartree-Bogoliubov model
to calculate neutron-related matrix elements for even-even nuclei,
instead of a simplistic scaling of the proton distribution by N/Z done
previously. This takes into account the fact that neutrons are, in
general, in different shell model orbits that protons. The calculated
conversion rate differ from previous calculations, particularly in the
region of large permanent quadrupole deformation. Finally, we introduce
an alternative normalization of the muon-to-electron conversion rate,
which relates more closely to what a given experiment actually measures,
and better separate lepton physics from nuclear physics effects.
Mu3e is an experiment under construction at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, aiming to search for the lepton flavour violating decay: mu+ -> e+e+e-. Any observation of this decay would indicate physics beyond the standard model (SM), as in the SM, neutrinos have no mass, and the decay is forbidden. Through extensions of the SM, the LFV decay becomes allowed through loops but is heavily suppressed O(10^50). The sensitivity of Mu3e aims to be of O(10^16), an improvement of four orders of magnitudes compared to previous results.
The experiment will use the world's most intense continuous muon beam, generating 10^8 muons per second in the first phase. These muons decay at rest after being stopped in a target placed at the centre of the detector. The entire detector will be placed within a 1 T magnetic field, such that after leaving the detector volume, charged particles return toward the detector and are detected a second time. While this also helps with background rejection, recurling is needed, especially for enhancing tracking resolution. Therefore, the Mu3e detector will be compact, with an extremely low material budget.
Additionally, to measure the missing energy and momentum carried by neutrinos (in the background process mu+ -> e+e+e- nu_e\bar{nu_mu}), Mu3e will need very good momentum resolution (< 0.5 MeV/c). The tracking is done through four layers of ultra-thin MuPix11 sensors. These are high-voltage monolithic active pixel sensors (HV-MAPS) with a ~ 23 um spatial resolution. The timing will be done through scintillating fibres (~ 250 ps) and tiles (< 100 ps), coupled to silicon photomultipliers and read out by MuTRiG3 ASICs. A triggerless DAQ system based on FPGAs will collect data from the detectors, which will then undergo reconstruction in a GPU filter farm. The assembly of the detectors has started, with an expected cosmic run scheduled for November and beam time next year. In this talk, I will report on the status of the installation and the data-taking plans for the near future.
Charged lepton flavor violation (CLFV) is expected in a diverse set of new physics scenarios. The current generation of experiments in the muon sector probe CLFV in three complementary channels: muon to electron conversion (Mu2e, COMET), muon to electron and gamma (MEG-II), and muon to three electrons (Mu3e). These experiments aim to enhance existing limits by several orders of magnitude and also offer discovery potential to many new physics scenarios. The proposed Advanced Muon Facility (AMF) at Fermilab will be a multi-purpose muon facility and introduces an innovative approach based on a muon storage ring to enable a full suite of muon CLFV experiments. AMF would provide additional enhancements on the upper limits or additional measurements of CLFV signals, depending on whether CLFV is observed in the current era of experiments. The design and R&D for AMF is in its infancy. This talk will outline the motivations for AMF, detail on-going R&D efforts, and highlight potential synergies with the proposed muon collider.
Current and future experiments need to know the stopping power of liquid argon for charged particles. It is used directly in calibration, to measure muon energy, and more broadly affects the simulation of all charged particles. The main parameter that controls stopping power is the mean excitation energy, or I-value. Commonly used values are $(188\pm6)$eV from ICRU-37 (1984), and $(187\pm3)$eV from ICRU-90 (2016), both evaluations for gaseous argon. We have re-evaluated existing experimental data, including range/stopping power and oscillator strength distribution measurements, taking into account phase. Further, we have performed a new proton range measurement on LAr at Fermilab. We recommend $(201\pm3)$eV, a value which shifts energy reconstruction in LAr TPCs by $\sim 0.5\%$. This shift feeds linearly into the measured value of $\Delta m^2$ and is similar to the projected DUNE sensitivity, which reaches 0.5% in 350 kt-MW-years.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation, long-baseline experiment that will explore some of the fundamental open questions in neutrino physics. ND-LAr is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) in the near detector complex of DUNE that will precisely characterize the outgoing neutrino beam. With a modularized design, as well as state-of-the-art light and pixelated charge readout systems, ND-LAr possesses several advantages over traditional LArTPCs that allow it to cope with the high intensity flux of the near site. The 2x2 demonstrator is an array of 2x2 fully integrated LArTPC modules installed in a single cryostat at Fermilab. It has been previously tested with cosmic rays and is recording neutrino data from the NuMI beam. Each module is split into two optically isolated TPCs by a central cathode, each of which has roughly 30% optical coverage with two novel and complementary technologies namely, the light collection module and the ArCLight module. Ionization electrons drift to two pixelated anodes with 78.4k channels with ~3-4mm granularity through the application of an electric field. In addition, repurposed tracker planes from the MINERvA experiment have been installed upstream and downstream of 2x2 that provide 3D tracking of charged particles. Neutrino data collected with 2x2 is crucial to demonstrate the design capabilities of ND-LAr and will yield DUNE's first neutrino physics analyses. This talk will discuss the design and current status of the ND-LAr 2x2 demonstrator.
JUNO (Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory) will be the largest liquid scintillator detector for neutrino physics. It will employ 20 000 tons of linear alkyl benzene (LAB), 2.5 g/L of PPO and 3 mg/L of bis-MSB. The main goal of JUNO is to determine the neutrino mass ordering in six years of data taking at 3 σ level.
The main detector of JUNO is a gigantic (35.4 meter of diameter) acrylic sphere surrounded by more than 45 000 PMTs (divided into small 3” and large 20” sizes) obtaining an excellent optical coverage ∼ 78 $\%$. The sphere will be filled with purified liquid scintillator, to reduce the content of Uranium and Thorium (but also other contaminants), five purification plants will be employed. An ancillary detector, OSIRIS will be deputed to check the radiopurity of the scintillator during filling. The five purification plants are commissioned and the results on the purification efficiency are promising. OSIRIS started the commission in March 2024, and now it is still under commissioning. The construction of the JUNO detector is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, with data-taking scheduled to start in 2025.
The most relevant features will be discussed in this talk, which will enable JUNO to reach the required 3$\%$ energy resolution for determining the neutrino mass ordering. Additionally, the purification plants will be described, which are essential for reducing the contamination of Uranium and Thorium below the 10$^{−15}$ g/g level. Finally, I will show some results on the commissioning of the purification plants and tests of the PMTs dark noises.
The Near Detector of the T2K experiment at J-PARC has recently being upgraded in order to reduce the present systematic uncertainties affecting the oscillation parameters measurements and to exploit the increased neutrino beam power of the J-PARC complex.
One of the major improvements to the T2K ND280 detector consisted of the integration of two large size (~ 3m3 each) new horizontal High -Angle Time-Projection Chambers (HATPC).
The new HATPCs are based on a gaseous active volume contained in a Field Cage made of lightweight composite material, combining optimal mechanical and electrical properties with minimal radiation length and dead volume.
The readout is performed by innovative Resistive Micromegas modules featuring a resistive layer for charge spreading on top of the readout plane to enhance spatial resolution performance. The mentioned technologies have been studied during several test beams and cosmic rays campaigns. After the installation at J-Parc in Fall 2023, a commissioning period of data taking with cosmics and then with a neutrino beam has been performed.
In this talk the details about the detector concepts, the design and construction methods are presented within the technological challenges and the solution adopted to cope with the challenging requirements of the upgrade. Furthermore, the results of the characterization and commissioning performance of the HA-TPCs at CERN and J-Parc, including also the first results using beam neutrinos interactions will be illustrated.
Plastic scintillator detectors with 3D granularity and sub-nanosecond time resolution offer simultaneous particle tracking, identification, and calorimetry. However, future enhancements necessitate larger volumes and finer segmentation, posing significant challenges in manufacturing and assembly due to high costs, extensive time, and precision requirements. The 3DET R&D collaboration has developed an innovative additive manufacturing approach, enabling the scalable production of 3D-segmented scintillating detectors. This method allows for the monolithic fabrication of 3D granular scintillators without additional production steps. A prototype, featuring a 5x5x5 matrix of optically isolated scintillating voxels made of transparent polystyrene, white reflectors, and 1 mm diameter orthogonal holes for wavelength shifting fibers, was produced.
We will discuss about the manufacturing process and performance evaluation of the prototype, using data from cosmic rays and CERN test beam exposures. This advancement offers a viable, time efficient, and cost-effective solution for producing next-generation scintillator detectors, maintaining high performance regardless of size and geometric complexity.
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a 20-kiloton liquid scintillator detector, currently under construction in southern China. JUNO aims to reach an unprecedented energy resolution of 3% at 1 MeV to achieve its primary physics goal of determining the neutrino mass ordering, by resolving fine structure due to flavor oscillations in the antineutrino energy spectrum from nearby nuclear reactors. JUNO’s world-leading size, PMT coverage and low backgrounds also allows for a very broad physics programme, measuring neutrino energies from tens of keV to tens of GeV. This talk involves the discussion of JUNO’s physics potential regarding neutrinos from a variety of natural sources. This includes prospects of neutrino oscillation measurements using atmospheric neutrinos, sensitivity to solar neutrinos, geoneutrinos and supernovae, along with searches for rare BSM decays.
Atmospheric neutrinos, through their weak interactions, serve as an independent tool for exploring the internal structure of Earth. This information is complementary to that obtained from seismic and gravitational measurements. The Earth matter effects depend upon the energy of neutrinos and the electron density distribution they encounter during their journey through Earth, and hence, can be used to probe the inner structure of Earth.
In this talk, we demonstrate how well an atmospheric neutrino experiment, such as an iron calorimeter detector, would simultaneously constrain the density jumps inside Earth and determine the location of the core-mantle boundary. In this work, we employ a five-layered density model of Earth, where the densities and radii of the layers are modified to ensure that the mass and moment of inertia of Earth remain constant while satisfying the hydrostatic equilibrium condition. We further demonstrate that the charge identification capability of an ical detector would play a crucial role in constraining the parameter space.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment designed to make precision measurements in the world's most powerful neutrino beam. Neutrinos are measured at two detector facilities: a near detector located at Fermilab close to where the beam is produced and a far detector at SURF. A key component of the near detector is the Precision Reaction Independent Spectrum Measurement (PRISM) system, which allows for the measurement of different neutrino energy spectra by moving the detector away from the central axis of the neutrino beam. These off-axis neutrino energy spectra provide a new degree of freedom that can be used to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between the observable energy deposits in the detector and the energy of the interacting neutrino. This can benefit DUNE in significantly reducing the impact of systematic uncertainties in the neutrino interaction model, which has historically been the largest source of systematic uncertainty in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. One possible use of the PRISM system is to perform a novel neutrino oscillation analysis that linearly combines off-axis neutrino energy spectra at the near detector to produce data-driven predictions of the far detector energy spectrum. This presentation will explain the role of the PRISM system in the DUNE physics program and demonstrate its utility to DUNE.
A high-precision measurement of $\Delta m^2_{31}$ and $\theta_{23}$ is inevitable to estimate the Earth's matter effect in long-baseline experiments which in turn plays an important role in addressing the issue of neutrino mass ordering and to measure the value of CP phase in $3\nu$ framework. After reviewing the results from the current experiments and discussing the near-future sensitivities from IceCube Upgrade and KM3NeT/ORCA, we study the improvements in the precision of 2-3 oscillation parameters that the next-generation experiments, DUNE and T2HK, can bring either in isolation or combination. We highlight the relevance of the possible complementarity between DUNE and T2HK in determining the sensitivity towards the deviation from maximal mixing of $\theta_{23}$, excluding the wrong octant solution of $\theta_{23}$, and obtaining high precision on 2-3 oscillation parameters, as compared to their individual performances. We observe that for the current best-fit values of the oscillation parameters and assuming normal mass ordering (NMO), DUNE + T2HK can establish the non-maximal $\theta_{23}$ and exclude the wrong octant solution of $\theta_{23}$ at around 7$\sigma$ C.L. with their nominal exposures. We find that DUNE + T2HK can improve the current relative 1$\sigma$ precision on $\sin^{2}\theta_{23}~(\Delta m^{2}_{31})$ by a factor of 7 (5) assuming NMO. Also, we notice that with less than half of their nominal exposures, DUNE + T2HK can achieve the sensitivities that are expected from these individual experiments using their full exposures. We also portray how the synergy between DUNE and T2HK can provide better constraints on $(\sin^2\theta_{23}$ - $\delta_{\mathrm{CP}})$ plane as compared to their individual reach.
After the landmark discovery of non-zero $\theta_{13}$ by the modern reactor experiments, unprecedented precision on neutrino mass-mixing parameters has been achieved over the past decade. This has set the stage for the discovery of leptonic CP violation (LCPV) at high confidence level in the next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. In this work, we explore in detail the
possible complementarity among the on-axis DUNE and off-axis T2HK experiments to enhance the sensitivity to LCPV suppressing the $\theta_{23}-\delta_{\mathrm{CP}}$ degeneracy. We find that none of these experiments individually can achieve the milestone of 3$\sigma$ LCPV for at least 75\% choices of $\delta_{\mathrm{CP}}$ in its entire range of $[-180^{\circ} , 180^{\circ}]$, with their nominal exposures and systematic uncertainties. However, their combination can attain the same for all values of $\theta_{23}$ with only half of their nominal exposures. We observe that the proposed T2HKK setup in combination with DUNE can further increase the CP coverage to more than 80\% with only half of their nominal exposures. We study in detail how the coverage in $\delta_{\mathrm{CP}}$ for $\ge$ 3$\sigma$ LCPV depends on the choice of $\theta_{23}$, exposure, optimal runtime in neutrino and antineutrino modes, and systematic uncertainties in these experiments in isolation and combination. We find that with an improved systematic uncertainty of 2.7\% in appearance mode, the standalone T2HK setup can provide a CP coverage of around 75\% for all values of $\theta_{23}$. We also discuss the pivotal role of intrinsic, extrinsic, and total CP asymmetries in the appearance channel and extrinsic CP asymmetries in the disappearance channel while analyzing our results.
We report on a global fit of neutral-current elastic (NCE) neutrino-scattering data and parity-violating electron-scattering (PVES) data with the goal of determining the strange quark contribution to the vector and axial form factors of the proton. Knowledge of the strangeness contribution to the axial form factor, $G_A^s(Q^2)$, at low $Q^2$ will reveal the strange quark contribution to the nucleon spin, as $G_A^s(Q^2=0)=\Delta s$. Previous fits [1,2] of this form included data from a variety of PVES experiments (PVA4, HAPPEx, G0, SAMPLE) and the NCE neutrino and anti-neutrino data from BNL E734. These fits did not constrain $G_A^s(Q^2)$ at low $Q^2$ very well because there was no NCE data for $Q^2<0.45$ GeV$^2$. Our new fit includes for the first time MiniBooNE NCE data from both neutrino and anti-neutrino scattering; this experiment used a hydrocarbon target and so a model of the neutrino interaction with the carbon nucleus was required. Three different nuclear models have been employed; a relativistic Fermi gas (RFG) model, the SuperScaling Approximation (SuSA) model, and a spectral function (SF) model [3]. We find a tremendous improvement in the constraint of $G_A^s(Q^2)$ at low $Q^2$ compared to previous work, although more data is needed from NCE measurements that focus on exclusive single-proton final states, for example from MicroBooNE [4]. This work has been published in Physical Review D [5].
[1] S.F. Pate, D. McKee, V. Papavassiliou, Phys. Rev. C78, 015207 (2008)
[2] S.F. Pate, D. Trujillo, EPJ Web of Conferences 66, 06018 (2014)
[3] C. Giusti and M.V. Ivanov, J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 47 024001 (2020)
[4] L. Ren, NuFact 2021, PoS, 402, 205 (2022), 10.22323/1.402.0205
[5] S.F. Pate et al., Phys. Rev. D 109, 093001, 2024
The choice of unfolding method for a cross-section measurement is tightly coupled to the model dependence of the efficiency correction and the overall impact of cross-section modeling uncertainties in the analysis. A key issue is the dimensionality used, as the kinematics of all outgoing particles in an event typically affects the reconstruction performance in a neutrino detector. OmniFold is an unfolding method that iteratively reweights a simulated dataset using machine learning to utilize arbitrarily high-dimensional information that has previously been applied to collider and cosmology datasets. Here, we demonstrate its use for neutrino physics using a public T2K near detector simulated dataset, and show its performance is comparable to or better than traditional approaches using a series of mock data sets.
Charged leptons produced by high-energy and ultrahigh-energy neutrinos have a substantial probability of emitting prompt internal bremsstrahlung $\nu_\ell + N \rightarrow \ell + X + \gamma$. This can have important consequences for neutrino detection. We discuss observable consequences at high- and ultrahigh-energy neutrino telescopes and LHC's Forward Physics Facility. Logarithmic enhancements can be substantial (e.g.\ $\sim 20\%$) when either the charged lepton's energy, or the rest of the cascade, is measured. We comment on applications involving the inelasticity distribution including measurements of the $\nu/\bar{\nu}$ flux ratio, throughgoing muons, and double-bang signatures for high-energy neutrino observation. Furthermore, for ultrahigh-energy neutrino observation, we find that final state radiation affects flavor measurements and decreases the energy of both Earth-emergent tau leptons and regenerated tau neutrinos. Finally, for LHC's Forward Physics Facility, we find that final state radiation will impact future extractions of strange quark parton distribution functions. Final state radiation should be included in future analyses at neutrino telescopes and the Forward Physics Facility.
The GiBUU´neutrino generator has been extended to also cover the neutrino fluxes encountered at the FASER experiment at CERN. Predictions for final state energy distributions and multiplicities are made. Particular emphasis is placed on a discussion of the extraction of formation times and interaction rates of newly formed hadrons.
DUNE will be a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that will perform precision measurements of the PMNS mixing parameters, unambiguously determine the neutrino mass order, and discover leptonic CP violation. It also comprises a rich non-accelerator physics program as the detection of supernova neutrinos and BSM physics. The Far Detector of DUNE will consist of four modules, of which at least three, will be 17 kton liquid argon Time Projection Chambers (LAr-TPCs). Inside a LAr-TPC, a Photon Detection System (PDS) is needed to detect the scintillation light produced by the interacting particles. The PDS signal provides the interaction time for non-beam neutrinos and improves the calorimetric reconstruction. To validate DUNE technology, two large-scale prototypes, of 750 ton of LAr each, have been constructed at CERN, ProtoDUNE-HD and ProtoDUNE-VD. The PDS of both prototypes is based on the XArapuca concept, a device that provides good detection efficiency covering large surfaces at a reasonable cost. During this talk, the PDS design of both, ProtoDUNE-HD and ProtoDUNE-VD will be reviewed and the preliminary performance of ProtoDUNE-HD, which is taking data from April 2024, will be shown.
In this talk, I present a light detection system called APEX (Aluminum Profiles with Embedded X-arapucas) targeted for next generation long-baseline neutrino experiment DUNE phase II FD3 where large-area light trap photodetectors will be instrumented on the entire field cage of a 17-kt LArTPC module. The photodetectors will cover four vertical walls of a DUNE vertical drift (VD) like LArTPC volume excluding the two anode planes, with a covered area up to 2500 m^2. The PoF (power over fiber) and SoF (signal over fiber) technologies developed and successfully demonstrated in DUNE VD make such a design possible and attractive. I will present the mechanical and electronic readout challenges during the scaling up of the photodetector coverage as well as integrating with the field cage structure. Its prototyping status at the CERN 2-ton cryostat and future plans will be introduced. The FD3 module is essential to DUNE which requires 40 kt of LAr fiducial mass to achieve its main physics goal specified in the 2014 P5 report and reaffirmed in the 2023 P5 report. To complete the fiducial mass, the DUNE phase II program requires two more far detector modules. The baseline design of FD3 is a copy of the DUNE VD module. The proposed APEX solution for FD3 further increases detector optical coverage area up to 60% and enables DUNE with improved event reconstruction, energy resolution, background rejection, and expansion of its physics reach to the tens-of-MeV energy region. The solution can also be combined with most of the proposed Phase II VD LArTPC charge readout technologies. Preliminary light simulation performance, improved reconstruction and physics sensitivity will be presented.
The 1st Far Detector of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be instrumented with a Vertical Drift Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (VD LArTPC). It will also be equipped with a Photo-Detection System (PDS), which provides the time stamp of non-beam events, a precise time measurement as well as contributing to the energy reconstruction. The characteristics of this new type of LArTPC required an innovative approach to the placement of the photo-detectors. In order to achieve a high light yield and uniform coverage of the detector, the PDS detectors in the VD LArTPC will be placed not only on the membrane of the cryostat, but also on the high voltage surface of the TPC's cathode. Such placement enhances the coverage of the PDS but presents an important technical challenge, since the powering and signal readout of the detectors must be done using non-conducting materials. To this end the Power-over-Fiber and Signal-over-Fiber transmission technologies were developed within the DUNE collaboration, opening a door to further enhance the coverage of future PD systems. This talk will describe the technical solutions developed to this end, as well as presenting the final performance results from laboratory characterization of the devices and the prototype testing campaigns carried out at the CERN Neutrino Platform.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next generation long-baseline neutrino experiment that will send an intense beam of neutrinos through two detector complexes: a near detector complex located at Fermilab (Chicago), and a far detector complex located ~1.5 km underground at Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota.
The DUNE far detector (FD) will consist of four liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs), each holding about 17 kt of liquid argon. One of these modules will employ Horizontal Drift (FD-HD) technology, while another will use Vertical Drift (FD-VD) technology. The FD-VD module will vertically drift the ionized electrons from the cathode plane suspended at the mid-height of the active volume of the cryostat. To increase the photon detector coverage in FD-VD, photon detectors (X-ARAPUCAs) will be installed along the cathode plane. Due to the high voltage (~300 kV) present at the cathode, conventional copper cables cannot be used to power the photon detectors. Therefore, Power-over-Fiber (PoF) technology will be deployed to power the photon detection system based on optical power transmission over optical fibers. This talk presents the R&D on different PoF components under harsh environments and its first-ever application in high energy physics detectors.
High-resolution accelerator neutrino detection requires massive active material and fine-grained 3D tracking capability.
Organic scintillators can offer both, combined with sub-nanosecond time resolution.
A millimeter, or even sub-millimeter, particle tracking resolution would be desirable to resolve those nuclear effects that are known to introduce a bias in the reconstruction of the neutrino energy.
On the other hand, the required very fine granularity of the active volume would imply additional complexity in the detector construction.
Moreover, traditional photosensor systems would lead to a very large number of readout channels.
As a solution, we propose a novel readout system, applying 3D imaging techniques to neutrino interactions in an unsegmented monolithic volume of organic scintillator, capable of high-resolution particle tracking.
This is achieved by combining the concept of plenoptic imaging with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) array imaging sensor.
The report will include the operation of the first plenoptic camera based on a SPAD array, as well as the resolution achievable by this detector concept, using image post-processing based on artificial intelligence.
Our work highlights the potential of such a novel system for high-precision detection of neutrino interactions.
In this contribution, we present a proof-of-concept, fine-granularity particle detector constructed from plastic scintillating fibres (SciFi) readout with a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) array sensor, intended for the next generation of neutrino experiments. These experiments will be limited by systematic uncertainties, of which many can be constrained by precisely reconstructing low-momentum protons, pion secondary interactions, and rejecting photon conversion events by having a sub-mm spatial granularity resolution.
SciFi are a natural choice as they can be manufactured with diameters down to 200 μm. Typically, SciFi are coupled to Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) however for neutrino active targets, a very large detector mass is required which would result in a prohibitive number of readout channels. Therefore, a new type of readout is necessary. SPAD array sensors fabricated using commercial CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) technologies would significantly reduce the required number of readout channels whilst maintaining the granularity of the detector, as multiple SciFi can be independently imaged by a single sensor, and provide the timing resolution of SiPMs.
In this study, a proof-of-concept detector instrumented with the SwissSPAD2 sensor has been constructed and exposed to MeV electrons from a Sr-90 source, demonstrating the potential of this technology for the future neutrino experiment requirements. Additionally, active volumes constructed with 200 μm SciFi are currently in the prototype phase.