LARNUEXP · Searching for new physics with liquid argon time projection chambers and developing the technology for the future of neutrino physics

Searching for new physics with liquid argon time projection chambers and developing the technology for the future of neutrino physics

The primary objective of the project is to search for New Physics which may be hiding within the data taken by short baseline neutrino (SBN) experiments currently operating in the USA. Secondary objectives are to be trained in the operation of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC), to aid in the construction of LArTPC components for the future DUNE experimnent, and to incorporate results from a DUNE prototype that has been running at CERN into the SBN analyses. The LArTPC technology has been chosen as the next generation technology for the USA-based long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment that will begin operating in the upcoming decade, and the University of Manchester is a member of a consortium to build components for the LArTPC that will be used. The DUNE experiment is a large international endeavour with over 1000 members across over thirty countries, and so is important for society for fostering international collaboration, and also for extending humanity’s understanding of physical reality. The currently running SBN experiment, MicroBooNE, has been taking data with a LArTPC for over five years now, and is mainly investigating whether there is a fourth type of neutrino (hints of which have been seen by older experiments). The experiment may be sensitive to new forces that affect neutrino interactions on argon, which will modify the rate of electron-positron production in the detector. The experiment is also potentially exposed to a high-intensity beam of new particles, such as dark matter, which could be being created in the same proton collisions that are producing neutrinos. The main aim of this project is to search for evidence of these new forces or dark matter being produced in the beams. The primary conclusion of the action is that we performed the first ever search in a LArTPC for electron-positron production from a dark scalar boson (close cousin of the Higgs boson), and found no evidence for it. We were able to exclude the new physics model parameters that could explain an anomalous underestimate of certain particle decays seen at an experiment in Japan called KOTO. This also pioneers similar studies that will be performed in the future at other LArTPC detectors at FermiLab.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union