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At least 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Neutrino Scattering Measurements on Hydrogen and Deuterium: A Snowmass White Paper

Neutrino interaction uncertainties are a limiting factor in current and next-generation experiments probing the fundamental physics of neutrinos, a unique window on physics beyond the Standard Model. Neutrino-nucleon scattering amplitudes are an important part of the neutrino interaction program. However, since all modern neutrino detectors are composed primarily of heavy nuclei, knowledge of elementary neutrino-nucleon amplitudes relies heavily on experiments performed in the 1970s and 1980s, whose statistical and systematic precision are insufficient for current needs. In this white paper, we outline the motivation for attempting measurements on hydrogen and deuterium that would improve this knowledge, and we discuss options for making these measurements either with the DUNE near detector or with a dedicated facility.

Alvarez-Ruso, Luis↗
DOE OSTI2020

Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider

We present a new calculation of the energy distribution of high-energy neutrinos from the decay of charm and bottom hadrons produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the kinematical region of very forward rapidities, heavy-flavor production and decay is a source of tau neutrinos that leads to thousands of charged-current tau neutrino events in a 1 m long, 1 m radius lead neutrino detector at a distance of 480 m from the interaction region. In our computation, next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections are accounted for in the production cross-sections. Non-perturbative intrinsic-kT effects are approximated by a simple phenomenological model introducing a Gaussian kT-smearing of the parton distribution functions, which might also mimic perturbative effects due to multiple initial-state soft-gluon emissions. The transition from partonic to hadronic states is described by phenomenological fragmentation functions. To study the effect of various input parameters, theoretical predictions for D± s production are compared with LHCb data on double-differential cross-sections in transverse momentum and rapidity. The uncertainties related to the choice of the input parameter values, ultimately affecting the predictions of the tau neutrino event distributions, are discussed. We consider a 3+1 neutrino mixing scenario to illustrate the potential for a neutrino experiment to constrain the 3+1 parameter space using tau neutrinos and antineutrinos. We find large theoretical uncertainties in the predictions of the neutrino fluxes in the far-forward region. Untangling the effects of tau neutrino oscillations into sterile neutrinos and distinguishing a 3+1 scenario from the standard scenario with three active neutrino flavours, will be challenging due to the large theoretical uncertainties from QCD.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Low- ν method with LHC neutrinos

The Forward Physics Facility (FPF) plans to use neutrinos produced at the Large Hadron Collider to make a variety of measurements at previously unexplored TeV energies. Its primary goals include precision measurements of the neutrino cross section and using the measured neutrino flux both to uncover information about far-forward hadron production and to search for various beyond standard model scenarios. However, these goals have the potential to conflict: Extracting information about the flux or cross section relies upon an assumption about the other. In this paper, we demonstrate that the FPF can use the low- ν method—a technique for constraining the flux shape by isolating neutrino interactions with low energy transfer to the nucleus—to break this degeneracy. We show that the low- ν method is effective for extracting the ν μ flux shape, in a model-independent way. We discuss its application for extracting the ν ¯ μ flux shape but find that this is significantly more model dependent. Finally, we explore the precision to which the ν μ flux shape could be constrained at the FPF for a variety of proposed detector options. We find that the precision would be sufficient to discriminate between various realistic flux models. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

2019 Conference on Science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (Final Technical Report)

The 3rd Conference on Science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility took place on May 14th to 17th, 2019 at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Eighty researcher from all over the U.S., from Europe and from Australia attended the conference and presented on the status of research related to current and future projects at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. Topics covered by presentations from experts in their field (plenary talks) and contributed oral presentations by junior scientists were neutrino oscillations with focus on science with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), dark matter search with priority on the LUX-Zeplin (LZ) experiment, neutrinoless double beta-decay search (Majorana Demonstrator), nuclear astrophysics (CASPAR and DIANA), and geology research (SIGMA-V). Complementary experiments locate at other research facilities were also well represented in the conference program. A public lecture on research in dark matter search for local high school students was organized as part of the conference program and was presented by one of the dark matter plenary speakers.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Spatial and temporal evaluations of the liquid argon purity in ProtoDUNE-SP

Liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) rely on highly pure argon to ensure that ionization electrons produced by charged particles reach readout arrays. ProtoDUNE Single-Phase (ProtoDUNE-SP) was an approximately 700-ton liquid argon detector intended to prototype the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Far Detector Horizontal Drift module. It contains two drift volumes bisected by the cathode plane assembly, which is biased to create an almost uniform electric field in both volumes. The DUNE Far Detector modules must have robust cryogenic systems capable of filtering argon and supplying the TPC with clean liquid. This paper will explore comparisons of the argon purity measured by the purity monitors with those measured using muons in the TPC from October 2018 to November 2018. A new method is introduced to measure the liquid argon purity in the TPC using muons crossing both drift volumes of ProtoDUNE-SP. For extended periods on the timescale of weeks, the drift electron lifetime was measured to be above 30 ms using both systems. A particular focus will be placed on the measured purity of argon as a function of position in the detector.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Leptonic scalars and collider signatures in a UV-complete model

We study the non-standard interactions of neutrinos with light leptonic scalars ( ϕ ) in a global ( B – L )-conserved ultraviolet (UV)-complete model. The model utilizes Type-II seesaw motivated neutrino interactions with an SU(2) L -triplet scalar, along with an additional singlet in the scalar sector. This UV-completion leads to an enriched spectrum and consequently new observable signatures. We examine the low-energy lepton flavor violation constraints, as well as the perturbativity and unitarity constraints on the model parameters. Then we lay out a search strategy for the unique signature of the model resulting from the leptonic scalars at the hadron colliders via the processes H ±± → W ± W ± ϕ and H ± → W ± ϕ for both small and large leptonic Yukawa coupling cases. We find that via these associated production processes at the HL-LHC, the prospects of doubly-charged scalar H ±± can reach up to 800 (500) GeV and 1.1 (0.8) TeV at the 2 σ (5 σ ) significance for small and large Yukawa couplings, respectively. A future 100 TeV hadron collider will further increase the mass reaches up to 3.8 (2.6) TeV and 4 (2.7) TeV, at the 2 σ (5 σ ) significance, respectively. We also demonstrate that the mass of ϕ can be determined at about 10% accuracy at the LHC for the large Yukawa coupling case even though it escapes as missing energy from the detectors.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

The physics potential of a reactor neutrino experiment with Skipper CCDs: Measuring the weak mixing angle

We analyze in detail the physics potential of an experiment like the one recently proposed by the vIOLETA collaboration: a kilogram-scale Skipper CCD detector deployed 12 meters away from a commercial nuclear reactor core. This experiment would be able to detect coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering from reactor neutrinos, capitalizing on the exceptionally low ionization energy threshold of Skipper CCDs. To estimate the physics reach, we elect the measurement of the weak mixing angle as a case study. We choose a realistic benchmark experimental setup and perform variations on this benchmark to understand the role of quenching factor and its systematic uncertainties, background rate and spectral shape, total exposure, and reactor antineutrino flux uncertainty. We take full advantage of the reactor flux measurement of the Daya Bay collaboration to perform a data driven analysis which is, up to a certain extent, independent of the theoretical un- certainties on the reactor antineutrino flux. We show that, under reasonable assumptions, this experimental setup may provide a competitive measurement of the weak mixing angle at few MeV scale with neutrino-nucleus scattering.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Prospects of Neutrino Cross Section Measurements Using the NuMI off axis at ICARUS [Poster]

ICARUS, a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber, will serve as the Far Detector of the short-baseline neutrino program using the Booster beamline at Fermilab. It is 103 mrad off-axis of the NuMI beamline. Prospects for cross-section measurements and the status of the trigger system using the PMT system to collect electron and muon neutrinos from NuMI will be shown. Accurate neutrino cross-section measurements on argon are required for precise measurements of neutrino oscillation physics such as CP- violation and the ordering of the neutrino masses.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Developing new analysis tools for near surface radio-based neutrino detectors

The ARIANNA experiment is an Askaryan radio detector designed to measure high-energy neutrino induced cascades within the Antarctic ice. Ultra-high-energy neutrinos above 10 16 eV have an extremely low flux, so experimental data captured at trigger level need to be classified correctly to retain as much neutrino signal as possible. We first describe two new physics-based neutrino selection methods, or "cuts", (the updown and dipole cut) that extend the previously published analysis to a specialized ARIANNA station with 8 antenna channels, which is double the number used in the prior analysis. For a standard trigger with a threshold signal to noise ratio at 4.4, the new cuts produce a neutrino efficiency of > 95% per station-year of operation, while rejecting 99.93% of the background (corresponding to 53 remaining experimental background events). When the new cuts are combined with a previously developed cut using neutrino waveform templates, all background is removed at no change of efficiency. In addition, the neutrino efficiency is extrapolated to 1,000 station-years of operation, obtaining 91%. This work then introduces a new selection method (the deep learning cut) to augment the identification of neutrino events by using deep learning methods and compares the efficiency to the physics-based analysis. The deep learning cut gives 99% signal efficiency per station-year of operation while rejecting 99.997% of the background (corresponding to 2 remaining experimental background events), which are subsequently removed by the waveform template cut at no significant change in efficiency. Here the results of the deep learning cut were verified using measured cosmic rays which shows that the simulations do not introduce artifacts with respect to experimental data. The paper demonstrates that the background rejection and signal efficiency of near surface antennas meets the requirements of a large scale future array, as considered in baseline design of the radio component of IceCube-Gen2.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Direct neutrino-mass measurement based on 259 days of KATRIN data

That neutrinos carry a nonvanishing rest mass is evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles. Their absolute mass holds relevance in fields from particle physics to cosmology. We report on the search for the effective electron antineutrino mass with the KATRIN experiment. KATRIN performs precision spectroscopy of the tritium β-decay close to the kinematic endpoint. On the basis of the first five measurement campaigns, we derived a best-fit value of $m^{2}_{v} = -0.14^{+0.13}_{-0.15}$ eV 2 , resulting in an upper limit of m ν < 0.45 eV at 90% confidence level. Stemming from 36 million electrons collected in 259 measurement days, a substantial reduction of the background level, and improved systematic uncertainties, this result tightens KATRIN’s previous bound by a factor of almost two.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

DUNE Software and Computing Challenges

The DUNE experiment will begin running in the late 2020's. The goals of the experiment include 1) studying neutrino oscillations using a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab in Illinois to the Sanford Underground Research Facility, 2) studying astrophysical neutrino sources and rare processes and 3) understanding the physics of neutrino interactions in matter. The DUNE Far Detector, consisting of four 17 kt LArTPC modules, will produce "events" rang-ing in size from 6 GBs to more than 100 TBs, posing unique challenges for DUNE software and computing. The data processing algorithms, particularly for raw data, drive the requirements for the future DUNE software framework documented here.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Neutrino Interaction Model and Uncertainties for MicroBooNE Analyses

The MicroBooNE experiment is searching for an excess of electron-like events at low neutrino energy, as well as making the first high-statistics measurements of neutrino interactions on argon. Interpretation of these results requires a reliable model of neutrino interaction physics with well-motivated uncertainties. This note describes the neutrino interaction model and uncertainties adopted for use in MicroBooNE’s cross section measurements and low-energy excess search.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Search for Electron Neutrino Anomalies with the MicroBooNE Detector

The Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment (MicroBooNE) is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) located in the Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The experiment was devised to investigate a series of observed anomalies concerning short-baseline neutrino oscillation physics. The LArTPC technology enables the experiment to study neutrino-argon scattering with unprecedented detail.This thesis presents a cosmic-ray characterisation and rate measurement. The understanding of cosmic activity in the detector - MicroBooNE's dominant background - is then used to develop cosmic rejection tools. A flavour-agnostic neutrino selection is constructed, which forms the cornerstone of this and further analyses. Inclusive muon and electron charged-current neutrino interaction selections with unprecedented purity and efficiency are presented.The first fully-automated characterisation of electron neutrinos in a muon neutrino beam with the LArTPC detector technology is performed. The Booster Neutrino Beam has an energy peaking around 1GeV and an intrinsic electron content of approximately 0.5%. The analysis investigates electrons produced in charged-current electron neutrino interactions. The kinematics of the electrons are measured along with comparisons to simulation. Most of the systematic uncertainties are constrained using a data-driven sample of charged-current muon neutrino events. The measurement of electron neutrinos originating from the Booster Neutrino Beam is a crucial component towards understanding the nature of the observed excess of low-energy electromagnetic-like events at its predecessor, MiniBooNE.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Analysis of the automatic reconstruction of protons from simulated neutrino interactions in the ICARUS detector: study of the performance of track vs shower discrimination algorithms

ICARUS, Imaging Cosmic and Rare Underground Signals, is the far detector of the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL). This program was born with the purpose of definitely explaining some anomalies in the field of neutrino oscillation physics, that can suggest the existence of a 4-type of neutrino: the sterile neutrino. It doesn’t interact directly with ordinary matter through the weak interaction, but we can observed the effect of its oscillation. In this chapter I will briefly observe: • the physics goals of the SBN Program; • the role of ICARUS as SBN far detector; • the detection technology.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Performance of Muon Neutrino Reconstruction at ICARUS using SPINE Machine Learning.

ICARUS is a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) neutrino experiment at Fermilab. Located ~600 m from the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) target, it serves as the far detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program. The primary objective of the SBN Program is to probe neutrino oscillation physics at short baselines using multiple detectors, including measurements of both muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance. A key requirement for the neutrino oscillation measurements is robust event reconstruction, including accurate and precise particle identification (PID) and kinematic reconstruction across a wide range of topologies. To achieve the required performance, we employ the SPINE (“Scalable Particle Imaging with Neural Embeddings”) package, a state-of-the-art machine learning reconstruction framework. This talk presents the status of muon neutrino reconstruction using SPINE at ICARUS, including the evaluation of reconstruction performance that will enable the full physics program at ICARUS and at the SBN Program.

Totani, Dante [Colorado State U.] (ORCID:000000019↗