Simulation and Design Optimization for Neutrino Beamlines

该奖项支持理解中微子的工作：中微子是宇宙中最小但最常见的大质量粒子。尽管每增加一个众所周知的电子或质子就会有10亿个中微子，但中微子之间的相互作用只通过所谓的“弱”力：因此它们很少撞上任何东西，即使是设计用来研究它们的探测器。这意味着它们也是最不为人所知的基本粒子。中微子科学中的一大谜团是它们如何变化(或振荡？)从一种类型到另一种类型。中微子振荡实验探索了宇宙中物质和反物质之间的差异的可能解释。该项目将为现有和未来的中微子振荡实验改进模拟和估计中微子通量的计算工具。这些工具对于高效和经济高效地设计用于高能粒子物理的中微子光束和探测器是必要的。关于强子产生截面和其他实验输入的最佳可用数据将被合并到现有的束线模拟中，并将创建用于快速迭代研究新的束线设计的改进的工具。这项工作将改进费米实验室Numi光束线的模拟，从而改进Minerva实验中中微子截面的测量，并为未来沙丘/LBNF长基线中微子振荡实验的设计和优化提供信息。该程序所使用的方法也广泛适用于物理研究中的束线和探测器系统的优化。研究生和本科生将接触到现代模拟和计算技术。这一群体以前的学生在私营部门和高能物理领域都取得了非常成功的职业生涯。

This award supports work to understand neutrinos: the smallest but most common massive particle in the universe. Although there are a billion neutrinos for every more well-known electron or proton, neutrinos interact only via the so-called "weak" force: so they rarely bump into anything, even the detectors designed to study them. That means they are also the least well understood of the fundamental particles. One of the big mysteries in neutrino science is how they change (or ?oscillate?) from one type to another. Neutrino oscillation experiments explore possible explanations for the difference between matter and anti-matter in the Universe. This project will improve the computational tools for simulating and estimating neutrino fluxes for existing and future neutrino oscillation experiments. These tools are necessary for efficient and cost-effective design of the neutrino beams and detectors used in high-energy particle physics. The best available data on hadron production cross sections and other experimental inputs will be incorporated into existing beam-line simulations, and improved tools for rapid iteration of studies for novel beam-line designs will be created. This effort will both produce improved simulations of the NuMI beamline at Fermilab, leading to improved measurements of neutrino cross sections in the MINERvA experiment, and inform the design and optimization of the future DUNE/LBNF long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. The methods used in this program are also broadly applicable to the optimization of beam-line and detector systems for physics research. Graduate and undergraduate students will be exposed to modern simulation and computing techniques. Previous students from this group have gone on to highly successful careers both in the private sector and in High Energy Physics.