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 collision dataset of 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 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.
- Received 24 March 2023
- Accepted 8 May 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.031801
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
Published by the American Physical Society
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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