Speaker
Description
FASER is a new experiment at the LHC aiming to search for light, weakly-interacting new particles, complementing other experiments. A particle detector will be located 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point. In addition to searches for new particles, we also aim to study high-energy neutrinos of all flavors, as there is a huge flux of neutrinos at this location. To date, muon neutrino cross-section data exist up to 350 GeV with accelerator-based neutrino beams, but we still miss data at the TeV energy scale. At the LHC-FASER, the neutrino cross-sections will be measured in the currently unexplored energy range between 350 GeV and 6 TeV. In particular, tau neutrinos will be measured at the highest energy ever. Furthermore, the channels associated with heavy quark (charm and beauty) production could be studied. As a feasibility study, a test run was performed in 2018 at the proposed detector location with a 30-kg lead/tungsten emulsion-based neutrino detector. Data of 12.5 fb$^{-1}$ was collected and about 30 neutrino interactions are expected to be recorded in the detector. For Run 3 of the LHC (2021-2023), we are planning to deploy an emulsion detector with a target mass of 1 ton, coupled with the FASER magnetic spectrometer, which would yield >10,000 muon neutrinos and about 50 tau neutrinos interacting in the detector. Analysis of the 2018 test run, as well as the prospects for future runs, will be presented.
Collaboration name
The FASER Collaboration
