A Proposal for a Three Detector Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Program in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam

A Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) physics program of three LAr-TPC detectors located along the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab is presented. This new SBN Program will deliver a rich and compelling physics opportunity, including the ability to resolve a class of experimental anomalies in neutrino physics and to perform the most sensitive search to date for sterile neutrinos at the eV mass-scale through both appearance and disappearance oscillation channels. Using data sets of 6.6e20 protons on target (P.O.T.) in the LAr1-ND and ICARUS T600 detectors plus 13.2e20 P.O.T. in the MicroBooNE detector, we estimate that a search for muon neutrino to electron neutrino appearance can be performed with ~5 sigma sensitivity for the LSND allowed (99% C.L.) parameter region. In this proposal for the SBN Program, we describe the physics analysis, the conceptual design of the LAr1-ND detector, the design and refurbishment of the T600 detector, the necessary infrastructure required to execute the program, and a possible reconfiguration of the BNB target and horn system to improve its performance for oscillation searches.Comment: 209 pages, 129 figure

Search for "anomalies" from neutrino and anti-neutrino oscillations at Delta_m^2 ~ 1eV^2 with muon spectrometers and large LAr-TPC imaging detectors

This proposal describes an experimental search for sterile neutrinos beyond the Standard Model with a new CERN-SPS neutrino beam. The experiment is based on two identical LAr-TPC's followed by magnetized spectrometers, observing the electron and muon neutrino events at 1600 and 300 m from the proton target. This project will exploit the ICARUS T600, moved from LNGS to the CERN "Far" position. An additional 1/4 of the T600 detector will be constructed and located in the "Near" position. Two spectrometers will be placed downstream of the two LAr-TPC detectors to greatly complement the physics capabilities. Spectrometers will exploit a classical dipole magnetic field with iron slabs, and a new concept air-magnet, to perform charge identification and muon momentum measurements in a wide energy range over a large transverse area. In the two positions, the radial and energy spectra of the nu_e beam are practically identical. Comparing the two detectors, in absence of oscillations, all cross sections and experimental biases cancel out, and the two experimentally observed event distributions must be identical. Any difference of the event distributions at the locations of the two detectors might be attributed to the possible existence of {\nu}-oscillations, presumably due to additional neutrinos with a mixing angle sin^2(2theta_new) and a larger mass difference Delta_m^2_new. The superior quality of the LAr imaging TPC, in particular its unique electron-pi_zero discrimination allows full rejection of backgrounds and offers a lossless nu_e detection capability. The determination of the muon charge with the spectrometers allows the full separation of nu_mu from anti-nu_mu and therefore controlling systematics from muon mis-identification largely at high momenta.Comment: Experiment proposa

Beyond standard metrics - on the selection and combination of distance metrics for an improved classification of hyperspectral data

Training and application of prototype based learning approaches such as Learning Vector Quantization, Radial Basis Function networks, and Supervised Neural Gas require the use of distance metrics to measure the similarities between feature vectors as well as class prototypes. While the Euclidean distance is used in many cases, the highly correlated features within the hyperspectral representation and the high dimensionality itself favor the use of more sophisticated distance metrics. In this paper we first investigate the role of different metrics for successful classification of hyperspectral data sets from real-world classification tasks. Second, it is shown that considerable performance gains can be achieved by a classification system that combines a number of prototype based models trained on differently parametrized divergence measures. Data sets are tested using a number of different combination strategies

Compte rendu du « 1er congrès interdisciplinaire du développement durable – Quelle transition pour nos sociétés ?» (Colloque, Namur, Belgique, 31 janvier et 1er février 2013)

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A comprehensive search for “anomalies” from neutrino and anti-neutrino oscillations at large mass differences (Δm^2 ~ 1eV^2) with two LAr–TPC imaging detectors at different distances from the CERN-PS.

The present proposal describes an experimental search of sterile neutrinos beyond the Standard Model with the CERN-PS beam and the innovative technology of imaging in ultra-pure cryogenic liquid Argon. The proposal is based on two strictly identical LAr-TPC detectors observing the electron-neutrino signal in the ”Far” and “Near” positions, the first one of about 600 tons placed 850 m the second one of about 150 tons at about 6.5 times shorter distance from the proton target. This project will exploit the ICARUS T600 — now running in the underground experiment CNGS2 with neutrinos from the CERN-SPS — moved from GranSasso to the CERN “Far” position. The additional T150 will be constructed and located in the “Near” position. In the two positions, the radial and energy spectra of the nu_e beam are practically identical. Comparing the two detectors, in absence of oscillations, all cross sections and experimental biases cancel out and the two experimentally observed event distributions must be identical. Any difference of the event distributions at the locations of the two detectors might be attributed to the possible existence of neutrino oscillations, presumably due to additional neutrinos with a new mixing angle and a larger mass difference. Two main anomalies will be explored with both neutrino and anti-neutrino focused beams. According to the first anomaly some of the nu_e (anti-nu_e) and/or nu_mu (anti-nu_mu) events might be converted into invisible components, leading to observation of oscillatory, distance dependent disappearance rates. In a second anomaly (following LSND and MiniBooNE observations) some distance dependent oscillations may be observed as a excess, especially in the antineutrino channel. A total LAr mass of 760 + 200 ton and a reasonable utilization of the CERN-PS with the refurbished TT7 beam line will offer remarkable discovery potentialities, collecting a very large number of unbiased events both in the neutrino and antineutrino channels, largely adequate to definitely settle the origin of the many indications behind the -related anomalies