FASER Collaboration, Roshan Mammen Abraham, John Anders, Claire Antel, Akitaka Ariga, Tomoko Ariga, Jeremy Atkinson, Florian U. Bernlochner, Tobias Boeckh, Jamie Boyd, Lydia Brenner, Angela Burger, Franck Cadoux, Roberto Cardella, David W. Casper, Charlotte Cavanagh, Xin Chen, Andrea Coccaro, Stephane Debieux, Monica D'Onofrio, et al (85) This paper presents the first results of the study of high-energy electron and muon neutrino charged-current interactions in the FASER$\nu$ emulsion/tungsten detector of the FASER experiment at the LHC. A subset of the FASER$\nu$ volume, which corresponds to a target mass of 128.6~kg, was exposed to neutrinos from the LHC $pp$ collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 13.6~TeV and an integrated luminosity of 9.5 fb$^{-1}$. Applying stringent selections requiring electrons with reconstructed energy above 200~GeV, four electron neutrino interaction candidate events are observed with an expected background of $0.025^{+0.015}_{-0.010}$, leading to a statistical significance of 5.2$\sigma$. This is the first direct observation of electron neutrino interactions at a particle collider. Eight muon neutrino interaction candidate events are also detected, with an expected background of $0.22^{+0.09}_{-0.07}$, leading to a statistical significance of 5.7$\sigma$. The signal events include neutrinos with energies in the TeV range, the highest-energy electron and muon neutrinos ever detected from an artificial source. The energy-independent part of the interaction cross section per nucleon is measured over an energy range of 560--1740 GeV (520--1760 GeV) for $\nu_e$ ($\nu_{\mu}$) to be $(1.2_{-0.7}^{+0.8}) \times 10^{-38}~\mathrm{cm}^{2}\,\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ ($(0.5\pm0.2) \times 10^{-38}~\mathrm{cm}^{2}\,\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$), consistent with Standard Model predictions. These are the first measurements of neutrino interaction cross sections in those energy ranges.
FASER Collaboration, Henso Abreu, Claire Antel, Akitaka Ariga, Tomoko Ariga, Florian Bernlochner, Tobias Boeckh, Jamie Boyd, Lydia Brenner, Franck Cadoux, David W. Casper, Charlotte Cavanagh, Xin Chen, Andrea Coccaro, Olivier Crespo-Lopez, Sergey Dmitrievsky, Monica D'Onofrio, Candan Dozen, Abdallah Ezzat, Yannick Favre, et al (60) FASER is a new experiment designed to search for new light weakly-interacting long-lived particles (LLPs) and study high-energy neutrino interactions in the very forward region of the LHC collisions at CERN. The experimental apparatus is situated 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction-point aligned with the beam collision axis. The FASER detector includes four identical tracker stations constructed from silicon microstrip detectors. Three of the tracker stations form a tracking spectrometer, and enable FASER to detect the decay products of LLPs decaying inside the apparatus, whereas the fourth station is used for the neutrino analysis. The spectrometer has been installed in the LHC complex since March 2021, while the fourth station is not yet installed. FASER will start physics data taking when the LHC resumes operation in early 2022. This paper describes the design, construction and testing of the tracking spectrometer, including the associated components such as the mechanics, readout electronics, power supplies and cooling system.
FASER Collaboration, Henso Abreu, Elham Amin Mansour, Claire Antel, Akitaka Ariga, Tomoko Ariga, Florian Bernlochner, Tobias Boeckh, Jamie Boyd, Lydia Brenner, Franck Cadoux, David Casper, Charlotte Cavanagh, Xin Chen, Andrea Coccaro, Stephane Debieux, Sergey Dmitrievsky, Monica D'Onofrio, Candan Dozen, Yannick Favre, et al (64) The FASER experiment is a new small and inexpensive experiment that is placed 480 meters downstream of the ATLAS experiment at the CERN LHC. FASER is designed to capture decays of new long-lived particles, produced outside of the ATLAS detector acceptance. These rare particles can decay in the FASER detector together with about 500-1000 Hz of other particles originating from the ATLAS interaction point. A very high efficiency trigger and data acquisition system is required to ensure that the physics events of interest will be recorded. This paper describes the trigger and data acquisition system of the FASER experiment and presents performance results of the system acquired during initial commissioning.
FASER Collaboration, Henso Abreu, Yoav Afik, Claire Antel, Jason Arakawa, Akitaka Ariga, Tomoko Ariga, Florian Bernlochner, Tobias Boeckh, Jamie Boyd, Lydia Brenner, Franck Cadoux, David W. Casper, Charlotte Cavanagh, Francesco Cerutti, Xin Chen, Andrea Coccaro, Monica D'Onofrio, Candan Dozen, Yannick Favre, et al (56) FASER$\nu$ at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to directly detect collider neutrinos for the first time and study their cross sections at TeV energies, where no such measurements currently exist. In 2018, a pilot detector employing emulsion films was installed in the far-forward region of ATLAS, 480 m from the interaction point, and collected 12.2 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. We describe the analysis of this pilot run data and the observation of the first neutrino interaction candidates at the LHC. This milestone paves the way for high-energy neutrino measurements at current and future colliders.
Z. Tang, E. B. Watkins, S. M. Clayton, S. A. Currie, D. E. Fellers, Md. T. Hassan, D. E. Hooks, T. M. Ito, S. K. Lawrence, S. W. T. MacDonald, M. Makela, C. L. Morris, L. P. Neukirch, A. Saunders, C. M. O'Shaughnessy, C. Cude-Woods, J. H. Choi, A. R. Young, B. A. Zeck, F. Gonzalez, et al (7) In this paper we report studies of the Fermi potential and loss per bounce of ultracold neutron (UCN) on a deuterated scintillator (Eljen-299-02D). These UCN properties of the scintillator enables a wide variety of applications in fundamental neutron research.
FASER Collaboration, Henso Abreu, Marco Andreini, Claire Antel, Akitaka Ariga, Tomoko Ariga, Caterina Bertone, Jamie Boyd, Andy Buckley, Franck Cadoux, David W. Casper, Francesco Cerutti, Xin Chen, Andrea Coccaro, Salvatore Danzeca, Liam Dougherty, Candan Dozen, Peter B. Denton, Yannick Favre, Deion Fellers, et al (52) FASERnu is a proposed small and inexpensive emulsion detector designed to detect collider neutrinos for the first time and study their properties. FASERnu will be located directly in front of FASER, 480 m from the ATLAS interaction point along the beam collision axis in the unused service tunnel TI12. From 2021-23 during Run 3 of the 14 TeV LHC, roughly 1,300 electron neutrinos, 20,000 muon neutrinos, and 20 tau neutrinos will interact in FASERnu with TeV-scale energies. With the ability to observe these interactions, reconstruct their energies, and distinguish flavors, FASERnu will probe the production, propagation, and interactions of neutrinos at the highest human-made energies ever recorded. The FASERnu detector will be composed of 1000 emulsion layers interleaved with tungsten plates. The total volume of the emulsion and tungsten is 25cm x 25cm x 1.35m, and the tungsten target mass is 1.2 tonnes. From 2021-23, 7 sets of emulsion layers will be installed, with replacement roughly every 20-50 1/fb in planned Technical Stops. In this document, we summarize FASERnu's physics goals and discuss the estimates of neutrino flux and interaction rates. We then describe the FASERnu detector in detail, including plans for assembly, transport, installation, and emulsion replacement, and procedures for emulsion readout and analyzing the data. We close with cost estimates for the detector components and infrastructure work and a timeline for the experiment.
L. J. Broussard, S. Baeßler, T. L. Bailey, N. Birge, J. D. Bowman, C. B. Crawford, C. Cude-Woods, D. E. Fellers, N. Fomin, E. Frlež, M. T. W. Gericke, L. Hayen, A. P. Jezghani, H. Li, N. Macsai, M. F. Makela, R. R. Mammei, D. Mathews, P. L. McGaughey, P. E. Mueller, et al (11) The Nab experiment will measure the ratio of the weak axial-vector and vector coupling constants $\lambda=g_A/g_V$ with precision $\delta\lambda/\lambda\sim3\times10^{-4}$ and search for a Fierz term $b_F$ at a level $\Delta b_F<10^{-3}$. The Nab detection system uses thick, large area, segmented silicon detectors to very precisely determine the decay proton's time of flight and the decay electron's energy in coincidence and reconstruct the correlation between the antineutrino and electron momenta. Excellent understanding of systematic effects affecting timing and energy reconstruction using this detection system are required. To explore these effects, a series of ex situ studies have been undertaken, including a search for a Fierz term at a less sensitive level of $\Delta b_F<10^{-2}$ in the beta decay of $^{45}$Ca using the UCNA spectrometer.
Nathan Callahan, Chen-Yu Liu, Francisco Gonzalez, Evan Adamek, James David Bowman, Leah Broussard, S.M. Clayton, S. Currie, C. Cude-Woods, E.B. Dees, X. Ding, E.M. Egnel, D. Fellers, W. Fox, P. Geltenbort, K.P. Hickerson, M.A. Hoffbauer, A.T. Holley, A. Komives, S.W.T. MacDonald, et al (20) In the UCN\tau experiment, ultracold neutrons (UCN) are confined by magnetic fields and the Earth's gravitational field. Field-trapping mitigates the problem of UCN loss on material surfaces, which caused the largest correction in prior neutron experiments using material bottles. However, the neutron dynamics in field traps differ qualitatively from those in material bottles. In the latter case, neutrons bounce off material surfaces with significant diffusivity and the population quickly reaches a static spatial distribution with a density gradient induced by the gravitational potential. In contrast, the field-confined UCN -- whose dynamics can be described by Hamiltonian mechanics -- do not exhibit the stochastic behaviors typical of an ideal gas model as observed in material bottles. In this report, we will describe our efforts to simulate UCN trapping in the UCN\tau magneto-gravitational trap. We compare the simulation output to the experimental results to determine the parameters of the neutron detector and the input neutron distribution. The tuned model is then used to understand the phase space evolution of neutrons observed in the UCN\tau experiment. We will discuss the implications of chaotic dynamics on controlling the systematic effects, such as spectral cleaning and microphonic heating, for a successful UCN lifetime experiment to reach a 0.01% level of precision.
T. M. Ito, E. R. Adamek, N. B. Callahan, J. H. Choi, S. M. Clayton, C. Cude-Woods, S. Currie, X. Ding, D. E. Fellers, P. Geltenbort, S. K. Lamoreaux, C. Y. Liu, S. MacDonald, M. Makela, C. L. Morris, R. W. Pattie Jr., J. C. Ramsey, D. J. Salvat, A. Saunders, E. I. Sharapov, et al (6) The ultracold neutron (UCN) source at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which uses solid deuterium as the UCN converter and is driven by accelerator spallation neutrons, has been successfully operated for over 10 years, providing UCN to various experiments, as the first production UCN source based on the superthermal process. It has recently undergone a major upgrade. This paper describes the design and performance of the upgraded LANL UCN source. Measurements of the cold neutron spectrum and UCN density are presented and compared to Monte Carlo predictions. The source is shown to perform as modeled. The UCN density measured at the exit of the biological shield was $184(32)$ UCN/cm$^3$, a four-fold increase from the highest previously reported. The polarized UCN density stored in an external chamber was measured to be $39(7)$ UCN/cm$^3$, which is sufficient to perform an experiment to search for the nonzero neutron electric dipole moment with a one-standard-deviation sensitivity of $\sigma(d_n) = 3\times 10^{-27}$ $e\cdot$cm.