Experimental Neutrino Physics

实验中微子物理

• 批准号: 1505472
• 负责人: Heidi Schellman
• 金额: $ 45万
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1505472&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Experimental; Neutrino; Physics

One of the major intellectual achievements of the 20th century was the development of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. This model succeeded in classifying all of the elementary particles known at the time into a hierarchy of groups having similar quantum properties. The validity of this model to date was recently confirmed by the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. However, the Standard Model as it currently exists leaves open many questions about the universe, including such fundamental questions as to why the Higgs mass has the value it has and why there is no antimatter in the universe. A primary area to search for answers to these and other open questions about the universe, how it came to be and why it is the way it is, is to focus on a study of the properties of neutrinos and to use what we know and can learn about neutrinos as probes of science beyond the Standard Model. Neutrinos are those elementary particles that interact with practically nothing else in the universe. They have no electric charge and were once thought to be massless. Like other elementary particles, they were believed to have an antimatter counterpart, the antineutrino. Moreover, the Standard Model predicted that there were actually three different kinds of neutrinos that were distinguishable through the different interactions that they did undergo whenever there was an interaction. But recent measurements have totally changed our picture of neutrinos. We now know that neutrinos do have a mass and because they do, they can actually change from one type to another, i.e. oscillate. Detailed measurements of these changes, along with other current neutrino experiments, form one of the most promising ways to probe for new physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). This particular project will focus on the study of the oscillations of the neutrinos between different types. The award will support the work of one post-doctoral researcher as well as graduate and undergraduate students. This award supports work, using the neutrino beam at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), on the neutrino experiments: MINERvA and MicroBooNE, both measuring neutrino oscillations: muon neutrino to electron neutrino transitions. These oscillations are of great interest to the scientific community since they could show indications of BSM physics. To correctly measure these transitions, precise knowledge of neutrino interactions with nuclei is required. This award will be used to measure these interactions across a wide energy range available at FNAL, which will be beneficial for both neutrino and nuclear physics. This will improve our knowledge of the neutrino flux, useful for future Short Baseline (detector near the source at FNAL) and Long Baseline (detector hundreds of kilometers away).

20世纪最重要的智力成就之一是粒子物理学标准模型（SM）的发展。这个模型成功地将当时已知的所有基本粒子划分为具有相似量子特性的等级。到目前为止，这个模型的有效性最近被欧洲核子研究中心大型强子对撞机发现的希格斯玻色子所证实。然而，目前存在的标准模型留下了许多关于宇宙的问题，包括为什么希格斯质量具有它所具有的价值以及为什么宇宙中没有反物质等基本问题。寻找这些和其他关于宇宙的开放性问题的答案，宇宙是如何形成的，为什么是这样的，一个主要的领域是专注于中微子的特性研究，并利用我们所知道的和可以了解的中微子作为标准模型之外的科学探测器。中微子是一种基本粒子，它几乎不与宇宙中任何其他物质相互作用。它们不带电荷，一度被认为是无质量的。像其他基本粒子一样，它们被认为有一种反物质，即反中微子。此外，标准模型预测，实际上有三种不同的中微子，它们在相互作用时所经历的不同相互作用可以区分开来。但是最近的测量完全改变了我们对中微子的认识。我们现在知道中微子确实有质量，正因为如此，它们实际上可以从一种类型转变为另一种类型，即振荡。对这些变化的详细测量，以及其他当前的中微子实验，形成了探索超越标准模型（BSM）的新物理的最有希望的方法之一。这个特别的项目将集中研究不同类型中微子之间的振荡。该奖项将支持一名博士后研究员以及研究生和本科生的工作。该奖项支持在费米国家加速器实验室（FNAL）使用中微子束进行的中微子实验：MINERvA和MicroBooNE，这两个实验都测量中微子振荡：介子中微子到电子中微子的跃迁。这些振荡引起了科学界的极大兴趣，因为它们可以显示出BSM物理的迹象。为了正确地测量这些跃迁，需要精确地了解中微子与原子核的相互作用。该奖项将用于在FNAL可用的广泛能量范围内测量这些相互作用，这将有利于中微子和核物理学。这将提高我们对中微子通量的认识，对未来的短基线（FNAL源附近的探测器）和长基线（数百公里外的探测器）都很有用。