Neutrino physics at CERN

Thursday 23 Oct 2025, 15:15 → 17:00 Europe/Rome

Aula A (Dipartimento di Fisica)

Speaker: Antonia Di Crescenzo

Neutrino physics has long played a central role in addressing fundamental questions in particle physics, from the origin of neutrino masses to the search for physics beyond the Standard Model. At CERN, a historic hub for neutrino research, there has recently been a revival of interest in collider neutrinos. In 2018, a feasibility study was conducted that paved the way for the proposal of two dedicated neutrino experiments at the LHC: FASERν and SND@LHC. These experiments aim to study, for the first time, neutrinos produced in high-energy proton-proton collisions with energies up to a few TeV.

SND@LHC (Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC) is a compact experiment operating in the very forward region (7.2 < η < 8.4), located 480 meters downstream from the ATLAS interaction point (IP1). It features a hybrid detector system composed of tungsten targets, nuclear emulsions, electronic trackers, a calorimeter, and a muon identification system. This configuration enables flavour identification and allows for detailed studies of forward heavy-flavour production.

SND@LHC began data taking with LHC Run 3 in 2022 and, remarkably, reported the first observation of collider neutrinos just one year later. The data show clear evidence for muon neutrino interactions as well as for neutrino events with no muons in the final state. In this seminar, we will present the most recent results and outline the upgrade program planned for the High-Luminosity LHC. This includes increasing the target mass, implementing silicon-based tracking, and improving muon identification, with the goal of extending flavour sensitivity and enhancing cross-section measurements in the TeV energy range.

 

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15:15 → 15:30 Welcome coffee

15:30 → 16:30 Neutrino physics at CERN

Speaker: Antonia Di Crescenzo (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)