Experimental Neutrino Physics

世纪的主要学术成就之一是粒子物理学标准模型（SM）的发展。该模型成功地将当时已知的所有基本粒子分类为具有相似量子特性的组的层次结构。最近，欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机发现了希格斯玻色子，证实了这一模型的有效性。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的价值以及为什么宇宙中没有反物质等基本问题。 对于这些和其他关于宇宙的开放性问题，宇宙是如何形成的，为什么会是这样，寻找答案的一个主要领域是专注于中微子性质的研究，并利用我们所知道的和可以学到的关于中微子的知识作为标准模型之外的科学探针。中微子是那些基本粒子，在宇宙中几乎不与其他任何东西相互作用。它们不带电荷，曾经被认为是无质量的。像其他基本粒子一样，它们被认为有一个反物质对应物，反中微子。此外，标准模型预测，实际上有三种不同类型的中微子，它们可以通过不同的相互作用来区分，无论何时发生相互作用。但是最近的测量已经完全改变了我们对中微子的看法。我们现在知道中微子确实有质量，因为它们确实有质量，所以它们实际上可以从一种类型转变为另一种类型，即振荡。这些变化的详细测量，沿着其他当前的中微子实验，形成了探索超越标准模型（BSM）的新物理学的最有前途的方法之一。 这个特别的项目将侧重于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。该奖项支持费米国家加速器实验室（FNAL）使用中微子束进行中微子实验：MINERvA和MicroBooNE，两者都测量中微子振荡：μ子中微子到电子中微子的跃迁。这些振荡是科学界的极大兴趣，因为它们可以显示BSM物理的迹象。 为了正确测量这些跃迁，需要精确了解中微子与原子核的相互作用。该奖项将用于测量FNAL可用的宽能量范围内的这些相互作用，这将有利于中微子和核物理。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）有用。

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).