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First Direct Observation of Collider Neutrinos with FASER at the LHC

Henso Abreu1, John Anders2, Claire Antel3, Akitaka Ariga4,5, Tomoko Ariga6, Jeremy Atkinson4, Florian U. Bernlochner7, Tobias Blesgen7, Tobias Boeckh7 et al. (FASER Collaboration)

Tobias Boeckh7, Jamie Boyd2, Lydia Brenner8, Franck Cadoux3, David W. Casper9, Charlotte Cavanagh10, Xin Chen11, Andrea Coccaro12, Ansh Desai13, Sergey Dmitrievsky14, Monica D’Onofrio10, Yannick Favre3, Deion Fellers13, Jonathan L. Feng9, Carlo Alberto Fenoglio3, Didier Ferrere3, Stephen Gibson15, Sergio Gonzalez-Sevilla3, Yuri Gornushkin14, Carl Gwilliam10, Daiki Hayakawa5, Shih-Chieh Hsu16, Zhen Hu11, Giuseppe Iacobucci3, Tomohiro Inada11, Sune Jakobsen2, Hans Joos2,17, Enrique Kajomovitz1, Hiroaki Kawahara6, Alex Keyken15, Felix Kling18, Daniela Köck13, Umut Kose2, Rafaella Kotitsa2, Susanne Kuehn2, Helena Lefebvre15, Lorne Levinson19, Ke Li16, Jinfeng Liu11, Jack MacDonald20, Chiara Magliocca3, Fulvio Martinelli3, Josh McFayden21, Matteo Milanesio3, Dimitar Mladenov2, Théo Moretti3, Magdalena Munker3, Mitsuhiro Nakamura22, Toshiyuki Nakano22, Marzio Nessi3,2, Friedemann Neuhaus20, Laurie Nevay2,15, Hidetoshi Otono6, Hao Pang11, Lorenzo Paolozzi3,2, Brian Petersen2, Francesco Pietropaolo2, Markus Prim7, Michaela Queitsch-Maitland23, Filippo Resnati2, Hiroki Rokujo22, Elisa Ruiz-Choliz20, Jorge Sabater-Iglesias3, Osamu Sato22, Paola Scampoli4,24, Kristof Schmieden20, Matthias Schott20, Anna Sfyrla3, Savannah Shively9, Yosuke Takubo25, Noshin Tarannum3, Ondrej Theiner3, Eric Torrence13, Serhan Tufanli2, Svetlana Vasina14, Benedikt Vormwald2, Di Wang11, Eli Welch9, and Stefano Zambito3 (FASER Collaboration)

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel
  • 2CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
  • 3Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
  • 4Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Laboratory for High Energy Physics, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
  • 5Department of Physics, Chiba University, 1-33 Yayoi-cho Inage-ku, 263-8522 Chiba, Japan
  • 6Kyushu University, Nishi-ku, 819-0395 Fukuoka, Japan
  • 7Universität Bonn, Regina-Pacis-Weg 3, D-53113 Bonn, Germany
  • 8Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • 9Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA
  • 10University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom
  • 11Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • 12INFN Sezione di Genova, Via Dodecaneso, 33–16146, Genova, Italy
  • 13University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA
  • 14Affiliated with an international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN
  • 15Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
  • 16Department of Physics, University of Washington, PO Box 351560, Seattle, Washington 98195-1460, USA
  • 17II. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
  • 18Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
  • 19Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
  • 20Institut für Physik, Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany
  • 21Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, Sussex House, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RH, United Kingdom
  • 22Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan
  • 23University of Manchester, School of Physics and Astronomy, Schuster Building, Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
  • 24Dipartimento di Fisica “Ettore Pancini”, Università di Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo, I-80126 Napoli, Italy
  • 25Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies, KEK, Oho 1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0801, Japan

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 031801 – Published 19 July, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.031801

Abstract

We report the first direct observation of neutrino interactions at a particle collider experiment. Neutrino candidate events are identified in a 13.6 TeV center-of-mass energy pp collision dataset of 35.4  fb−1 using the active electronic components of the FASER detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The candidates are required to have a track propagating through the entire length of the FASER detector and be consistent with a muon neutrino charged-current interaction. We infer 153−13+12 neutrino interactions with a significance of 16 standard deviations above the background-only hypothesis. These events are consistent with the characteristics expected from neutrino interactions in terms of secondary particle production and spatial distribution, and they imply the observation of both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos with an incident neutrino energy of significantly above 200 GeV.

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Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Viewpoint

The Dawn of Collider Neutrino Physics

Published 19 July, 2023

The first observation of neutrinos produced at a particle collider opens a new field of study and offers ways to test the limits of the standard model.

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Observation of Collider Muon Neutrinos with the SND@LHC Experiment

R. Albanese et al. (SND@LHC Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 031802 (2023)

Article Text

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 031801– Published 19 July, 2023
  • Received 24 March 2023
  • Accepted 8 May 2023
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