Neutrino Physics at Syracuse University

20世纪的主要智力成就之一是粒子物理标准模型(SM)的发展。这个模型成功地将当时已知的所有基本粒子归入具有相似量子性质的群组的层次结构中。最近在欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机上发现的希格斯玻色子证实了这个模型到目前为止的有效性。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，为什么宇宙中没有反物质等基本问题。要寻找这些和其他关于宇宙的公开问题的答案，它是如何形成的，为什么它是这样的，主要领域之一是专注于中微子的性质研究，并将我们所知道和可以了解的中微子用作超越标准模型的科学探测器。中微子是那些与宇宙中几乎任何其他东西都不相互作用的基本粒子。它们没有电荷，曾经被认为是无质量的。与其他基本粒子一样，它们被认为有一个反物质的对应物，即反中微子。此外，标准模型预测，实际上有三种不同类型的中微子可以通过不同的相互作用来区分，无论何时发生相互作用，它们都会经历不同的相互作用。但最近的测量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，因为它们有质量，所以它们实际上可以从一种类型变成另一种类型。对这些变化的详细测量，以及目前的其他中微子实验，形成了探索标准模型以外的新物理的最有前途的方法之一。这样的测量是这个项目的核心。目前，在费米国家加速器实验室(FNAL)拟议的长基线中微子实验(LBNE)项目以及一般的中微子物理的推动下，液体Ar时间投影室(LArTPC)中的实验粒子物理引起了人们的极大兴趣。该奖项支持使用测试束和FNAL的MicroBooNE实验改进LArTPC技术的工作。LArTPC探测器技术可以扩展到下一代中微子实验所需的非常大的质量(可能是10千吨)，并能够记录粒子轨迹的三维数字图像。MicroBooNE的有效体积为80吨液氮和8256根导线，分布在组成时间投影室的三个仪表式导线平面上。Microboone将进行各种有趣的物理测量，并作为与未来实验相关的新硬件技术的试验场。MicroBooNE的主要物理目标之一是提供对之前由MiniBooNE实验确定的电子中微子事件的“低能量过剩”的交叉检查。最近有“迹象”表明，可能存在一种新类型的中微子，即所谓的稀有中微子。拥有优越的LArTPC的Microboone实验应该会澄清这种情况：要么排除或确认无菌中微子的证据。该奖项工作的另一个方面是在欧洲核子研究中心开发了一种名为ProtoDUNE的大型LArTPC探测器。该奖项将提供一名博士后研究员从事原沙丘探测器的安装和调试工作。这项工作的更广泛影响将包括由该项目支持的研究生和本科生获得高能物理探测器开发的第一手经验，同时还可以访问MicroBooNE数据，研究生将使用这些数据进行论文分析。作为这项提议的一部分，锡拉丘兹小组将继续开展若干外联工作。该小组维护一个外联网页，其中包括一份“向物理学家提问”调查表以及一个活跃的QuarkNet计划。

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. One of the primary areas 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. 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. Such measurements lie at the heart of this project. There is currently a large interest in experimental particle physics in Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPC) spurred in part by the proposed Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) project at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) and in neutrino physics in general. This award supports work which refines LArTPC technology, using a test beam and at the MicroBooNE experiment at FNAL. LArTPC detector technology is scalable to the very large masses (perhaps 10 kiloTons) needed by next generation neutrino experiments and is capable of recording three-dimensional digital images of particle trajectories. The MicroBooNE will have an active volume of 80 tons of liquid argon and 8256 wires spread over three instrumented wireplanes making up the Time Projection Chamber. MicroBooNE will make a variety of interesting physics measurements, as well as serving as a proving ground for new hardware techniques relevant for future experiments. Among MicroBooNE's primary physics goals is to provide a cross-check of the "low-energy excess" of electron neutrino events previously identified by the MiniBooNE experiment. There have been recent "hints" that there may be a new type of neutrino, the so-called sterile neutrino. The MicroBoone experiment, with the superior LArTPC, should clarify the situation: either rule out or confirm the sterile neutrino evidence. Another aspect of the work in this award is the development of a large LArTPC detector at CERN called ProtoDUNE. This award will provide one post-doctoral fellow to work on the installation and commissioning of the Proto-DUNE detector. The lessons learned here will inform the future DUNE detector design.The broader impact of this work will involve graduate students and undergraduates supported by this project receiving first-hand experience with High Energy Physics detector development, while also having access to MicroBooNE data that the graduate students will use for their dissertation analyses. The Syracuse group will continue with several outreach efforts as part of this proposal. The group maintains an outreach webpage that includes an "Ask-a-A-Physicist" questionnaire form as well as an active QuarkNet program.