DsTau: Study of tau neutrino production with 400 GeV protons from the CERN-SPS

In the DsTau experiment at the CERN SPS, an independent and direct way to measure tau neutrino production following high energy proton interactions was proposed. As the main source of tau neutrinos is a decay of Ds mesons, produced in proton-nucleus interactions, the project aims at measuring a differential cross section of this reaction. The experimental method is based on a use of high resolution emulsion detectors for effective registration of events with short lived particle decays. Here we present the motivation of the study, details of the experimental technique, and the first results of the analysis of the data collected during test runs, which prove feasibility of the full scale study of the process in future

TAO Conceptual Design Report: A Precision Measurement of the Reactor Antineutrino Spectrum with Sub-percent Energy Resolution

The Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO, also known as JUNO-TAO) is a satellite experiment of the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO). A ton-level liquid scintillator detector will be placed at about 30 m from a core of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor antineutrino spectrum will be measured with sub-percent energy resolution, to provide a reference spectrum for future reactor neutrino experiments, and to provide a benchmark measurement to test nuclear databases. A spherical acrylic vessel containing 2.8 ton gadolinium-doped liquid scintillator will be viewed by 10 m^2 Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) of >50% photon detection efficiency with almost full coverage. The photoelectron yield is about 4500 per MeV, an order higher than any existing large-scale liquid scintillator detectors. The detector operates at -50 degree C to lower the dark noise of SiPMs to an acceptable level. The detector will measure about 2000 reactor antineutrinos per day, and is designed to be well shielded from cosmogenic backgrounds and ambient radioactivities to have about 10% background-to-signal ratio. The experiment is expected to start operation in 2022

First Direct Observation of Collider Neutrinos with FASER at the LHC

We report the first direct observation of neutrino interactions at a particle collider experiment. Neutrino candidate events are identified in a 13.6 TeV center-of-mass energy $pp$ collision data set of 35.4 fb${}^{-1}$ using the active electronic components of the FASER detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The candidates are required to have a track propagating through the entire length of the FASER detector and be consistent with a muon neutrino charged-current interaction. We infer $153^{+12}_{-13}$ neutrino interactions with a significance of 16 standard deviations above the background-only hypothesis. These events are consistent with the characteristics expected from neutrino interactions in terms of secondary particle production and spatial distribution, and they imply the observation of both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos with an incident neutrino energy of significantly above 200 GeV.Comment: Submitted to PRL on March 24 202

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

New results from the OPERA experiment

The OPERA experiment reached its main goal by proving the appearance of νη in the CNGS νμ beam. A total sample of 5 candidates fulfilling the analysis defined in the proposal was detected with a S/B ratio of about ten allowing to reject the null hypothesis at 5.1σ. The search has been extended to γη-like interactions failing the kinematical analysis defined in the experiment proposal to obtain a statistically enhanced, lower purity, signal sample. Based on the enlarged data sample the estimation of Δm223 in appearance mode is presented. The search for νe interactions has been extended over the full data set with a more than twofold increase in statistics with respect to published data. The analysis of the νμ μ νe channel is updated and the implications of the electron neutrino sample in the framework of the 3+1 sterile model is discussed. An analysis of νμ μ νπ interactions in the framework of the sterile neutrino model has also been performed. Moreover the results of the analysis of the annual modulation of the cosmic muon rate will be presented

Status and Updated Results of the OPERA Experimental Search for νμ→ντ \nu_{\mu} \to \nu_\tau Oscillations.

The OPERA detector in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory (LNGS) has been designed to detect muon-neutrino to tau-neutrino oscillations in direct appearance mode. The hybrid apparatus consists of an emulsion/lead target and of electronic detectors. Data taking using the CNGS muon-neutrino beam from CERN took place from 2008 to 2012. The various steps of the analysis are described, from the localization of the target element where a neutrino interaction occurred up to the identification in the emulsion films of the decay vertex of a short lived particle. The detailed simulation of the different steps allows a precise evaluation of the signal efficiency and of the associated backgrounds. The significance of the latest tau-neutrino appearance results is discussed

Dataset of tau neutrino interactions recorded by the OPERA experiment

We describe the dataset of very rare events recorded by the OPERA experiment. The events represent tracks of particles associated with tau neutrino interactions coming from the transformation of muon neutrinos due to a process known as neutrino oscillations. The events have been published on the CERN Open Data Portal. We describe the dataset semantics and the interactive event display visualisation tool accompanying the data release