Description
Fermilab is the only laboratory in the world that operates two accelerator-based neutrino beams simultaneously. These intense neutrino sources enable an important collection of experi- ments that are studying neutrinos over both short and long distances, allowing the experiments to address questions such as the neutrino mass ordering, whether additional (sterile) neutrinos exist, and whether neutrinos violate matter-antimatter (CP) symmetry. The 8 GeV protons from the Booster are supplied to the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB), which serves ANNIE, MicroBooNE and MiniBooNE and will soon serve ICARUS and SBND. The 120 GeV proton beam from the Main Injector supports neutrino experiments at NuMI (MINERvA and NOvA) and will support the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF)/Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in the future.
The NOvA experiment explores the details of neutrino flavor transformation. DUNE will push beyond the precision achievable by NOvA in a new beamline created as part of the LBNF and powered by the Proton Improvement Plan II (PIP-II) accelerator upgrades. MINERvA, scheduled to cease data taking in 2019, enables these measurements with precision measure- ments of neutrino interactions with various nuclear targets. The Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program on the low-energy BNB is designed to definitively address the question of sterile neu- trinos through a suite of three experiments: MicroBooNE, that began operating with beam in 2015; ICARUS, that will begin operating in 2019; and SBND, the Short-Baseline Near Detec- tor that will follow in 2020. Experience with these liquid argon detectors will also inform the future flagship international LBNF/DUNE program.
