Speaker
Description
FASER$\nu$ at the CERN LHC is designed to directly detect collider neutrinos for the first time and study their cross sections at TeV energies. The detector will be located 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point. With FASER$\nu$, the three-flavor neutrino cross-sections will be measured in the currently unexplored energy range between 350 GeV and 5 TeV. In particular, tau-neutrino and electron-neutrino cross sections will be measured at the highest energy ever. From the other perspective, FASER$\nu$ can measure forward neutrino production, and provide novel constraints on forward particle production.
In 2018 we performed a pilot run with the aims of measuring particle fluxes at the detector location and of detecting neutrino interactions for the first time at the LHC. We installed a 30-kg lead/tungsten emulsion detector and collected data of 12.2 fb$^{-1}$. The analysis of this data has yielded several neutrino interaction candidates, excluding the no-signal hypothesis at the 2$\sigma$ level.
During Run-3 of the LHC starting from 2022, we will deploy an emulsion detector with a target mass of 1.1 tons, coupled with the FASER magnetic spectrometer. This would yield roughly 1,300 $\nu_e$, 9,000 $\nu_{\mu}$, and 30 $\nu_{\tau}$ interacting in the detector. We present the status and plan of FASER$\nu$, as well as the neutrino detection in the 2018 data.
| Working group | WG5 |
|---|
