ASP Online Seminars: Fundamental physics possibilities with neutrons at the European Spallation Source

by Dr Valentina Santoro

Tuesday 2 Feb 2021, 15:30 → 17:00 Europe/Paris

Join Zoom Meeting

https://cern.zoom.us/j/95193567359?pwd=TzdPQWsyWXlSTy9RNXFoa1FhL2xqQT09

Meeting ID: 951 9356 7359

The European Spallation Source (ESS) is being constructed in Lund, Sweden, to be the brightest cold (< 0.025 eV) spallation neutron source in the world. The facility uses a 2 GeV proton beam hitting a tungsten target to produce neutrons via spallation. The neutrons are then moderated in cold and thermal moderators consisting of liquid hydrogen and water, respectively. Surrounding the moderators are 42 beamports, which view the moderator's outside surfaces.  The scope of ESS, is to build and operate 22 world-leading instruments in an open user program. Of these, the first 15 will be brought online by the end of 2025. For the remaining 7 instruments, a document from ESS has analysed the capability gaps remaining after construction of the first instruments, and the result of this analysis has shown that one of the communities that is most obviously not catered, is the particle physics community. Therefore, it is in the ESS view that the science program should include particle physics. Among the various possibilities, there is a beamline dedicated to particle physics (ANNI) that will be able to exploit different experiments with a broad program of measurements: neutron beta decay, electromagnetic properties of neutron, hadronic weak interactions, and searches for mirror matter.

Another possibility is the high-sensitivity search for a free neutron-antineutron oscillation (n→nbar) that violates the baryon number by two units. This proposal, called NNBAR, aims improve by three orders of magnitude the previously attained limit from the Institute Laue-Langevin ILL.

I will talk about the experiments mentioned above and their scientific capabilities in the context of the current status of particle physics.

ASP_0202_Santoro__ESS_FundamentalPhysics.mp4

Bio_ValentinaSantoro.pdf

SlideVSantoro_2Feb2021.pptx

webpage and prerequisites

YouTube_Santoro_0202