neutrinoKnown for their small mass and weak interactions with matter, these elements play a crucial role in physics. Until recently, studies of the properties of neutrinos were mostly carried out at low or very high energies. A significant energy range from 350 gigaelectron volts to 10 teraelectron volts remained virtually unexplored.

Because most of the neutrinos produced in the VAK tend to move along the proton beam, their orbit makes them nearly impossible to capture by the primary detectors in the collider. In addition, the weak neutrino interaction cross section makes it difficult to recognize neutrino events among the large number of detector data obtained from the interaction of other particles.

Details of the new experiment

Now the scientists in the experiment SND@LHC have had their own success in detecting neutrinos. The team managed to record the muon neutrinos with statistical significance about seven standard deviations.

It should be noted that the SND@LHC experiment differs from FASER in its approach: FASER detects neutrinos with pseudo-velocities greater than 8.5, while the SND@LHC strategically shifts its sensitive field away from the primary axis of particle acceleration.

This shift allows the SND@LHC to cover the pseudorate range of 7.2 to 8.4. An important source of neutrinos from the decays of magical hadrons, whose contribution to the FASER experiment is negligible, is in this range.

• The experimental setup consists of a muon veto, an 830-kilogram target, and a hadronic calorimeter. The primary target is divided into five separate layers, each containing a tungsten plate, a nuclear photoemulsion, and an electronic tracer.
• Although the analysis of the photoemulsion data is still ongoing, the researchers only analyze the data from electronic trackers. The physicists successfully isolated these events, carefully selecting eight events based on their spatial distribution in the detector and the expected overlap of signatures with muon events.
• The expected background noise was 0.086 events, underlining the extraordinary nature of the results. The excess of the signal above the background noise strongly rejects the null hypothesis at a convincing level of 6.8 standard deviations.

It is worth noting that the recorded number of neutrino events exceeded the initially expected number of 4.2 events. It is encouraging that these results are consistent with predictions made by computer simulations, given their inherent uncertainty.

As the scientific community continues to unravel the mysteries of neutrinos, these latest developments deepen our understanding of these enigmatic particles and pave the way for further research at the frontiers of particle physics.