Simulation and Design Optimization for Neutrino Beamlines

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports work to understand neutrinos: the smallest but most common massive particle in the universe. Although there are a billion neutrinos for every more well-known electron or proton, neutrinos interact only via the so-called "weak" force: so they rarely bump into anything, even the detectors designed to study them. That means they are also the least well understood of the fundamental particles. One of the big mysteries in neutrino science is how they change (or ?oscillate?) from one type to another. Neutrino oscillation experiments explore possible explanations for the difference between matter and anti-matter in the Universe. This project will improve the computational tools for simulating and estimating neutrino fluxes for existing and future neutrino oscillation experiments. These tools are necessary for efficient and cost-effective design of the neutrino beams and detectors used in high-energy particle physics. The best available data on hadron production cross sections and other experimental inputs will be incorporated into existing beam-line simulations, and improved tools for rapid iteration of studies for novel beam-line designs will be created. This effort will both produce improved simulations of the NuMI beamline at Fermilab, leading to improved measurements of neutrino cross sections in the MINERvA experiment, and inform the design and optimization of the future DUNE/LBNF long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. The methods used in this program are also broadly applicable to the optimization of beam-line and detector systems for physics research. Graduate and undergraduate students will be exposed to modern simulation and computing techniques. Previous students from this group have gone on to highly successful careers both in the private sector and in High Energy Physics.