Detecting and studying high-energy collider neutrinos with FASER at the LHC: FASER Collaboration
More Like this
-
Neutrinos from a particle collider have never been directly detected. FASER𝜈 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to detect such neutrinos for the first time and study their cross sections at TeV energies—at present, no such measurements are available at such high energies. In 2018, during LHC Run 2, we installed a pilot detector 480-m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point. In this pilot run, proton–proton collision data of 12.2 fb−1 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV were collected. We observed the first candidate vertices, which were consistent with neutrino interactions. A 2.7𝜎 excess of neutrino-like signal above the background was measured. This milestone opens a new avenue for studying neutrinos at the existing and future high-energy colliders. During LHC Run 3, which will commence in 2022, we will deploy an emulsion detector with a target mass of 1.1 tons, coupled with the FASER magnetic spectrometer. This will yield ∼2,000 𝜈𝑒, ∼6,000 𝜈𝜇, and ∼40 𝜈𝜏 interactions in the detector. Herein, we present the status and plan of FASER𝜈 and report neutrino detection in the 2018 data.more » « less
-
The LHC Run III will be a crucial run for the two LHC forward experiments: LHCf and FASER. In particular, Run III will be the last run where the LHCf detector can operate, and the first run of the new FASER project. The LHCf experiment is dedicated to precise measurements of forward production, necessary to tune hadronic interaction models employed in cosmic-ray physics. In Run III, the experiment will accomplish two fundamental goals: operating in p-p collisions at s√= s = 14 TeV, it will acquire a statistics that is ten times larger respect to Run II, in order to have precise measurements of π0 π 0 production; operating in high energy p-O and O-O collisions, it will measure forward production in a configuration that is very similar to the first interaction of an Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray with an atmospheric nucleus. The FASER experiment is dedicated to the search of new weakly-interacting light particles thanks to a forward detector with proper shielding from Standard Model background. In Run III, it will be able to search for new particles with a good sensitivity, which can be strongly improved after an upgrade before Run IV. In addition, thanks to the dedicated FASERν detector, it will measure neutrino production at a collider for the first time. In this contribution, we discuss the main results expected from the LHCf and FASER experiments in Run III, highlighting their fundamental contribution in research fields that are not accessible to the four large LHC experiments.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7631-5
