Abstract Proton-proton collisions at the LHC generate a high-intensity collimated beam of neutrinos in the forward (beam) direction, characterised by energies of up to several TeV. The recent observation of LHC neutrinos by FASER$$\nu $$ and SND@LHC signifies that this previously overlooked particle beam is now available for scientific investigation. Here we quantify the impact that neutrino deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) measurements at the LHC would have on the parton distributions (PDFs) of protons and heavy nuclei. We generate projections for DIS structure functions for FASER$$\nu $$ and SND@LHC at Run III, as well as for the FASER$$\nu $$ 2, AdvSND, and FLArE experiments to be hosted at the proposed Forward Physics Facility (FPF) operating concurrently with the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). We determine that up to one million electron-neutrino and muon-neutrino DIS interactions within detector acceptance can be expected by the end of the HL-LHC, covering a kinematic region inxand$$Q^2$$ overlapping with that of the Electron-Ion Collider. Including these DIS projections in global (n)PDF analyses, specifically PDF4LHC21, NNPDF4.0, and EPPS21, reveals a significant reduction in PDF uncertainties, in particular for strangeness and the up and down valence PDFs. We show that LHC neutrino data enable improved theoretical predictions for core processes at the HL-LHC, such as Higgs and weak gauge boson production. Our analysis demonstrates that exploiting the LHC neutrino beam effectively provides CERN with a āNeutrino-Ion Colliderā without requiring modifications in its accelerator infrastructure.
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Measuring TeV neutrinos with FASER$\nu$ in LHC Run 3
Neutrinos from a particle collider have never been directly detected. FASERš at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to detect such neutrinos for the first time and study their cross sections at TeV energiesāat 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, protonāproton collision data of 12.2 fbā1 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV were collected. We observed the first candidate vertices, which were consistent with neutrino interactions. A 2.7š 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 ā¼2,000 šš, ā¼6,000 šš, and ā¼40 šš interactions in the detector. Herein, we present the status and plan of FASERš and report neutrino detection in the 2018 data.
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- PAR ID:
- 10339503
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics 2021
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 248
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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