Description:

The ICARUS detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program at Fermilab is sensitive to “long-lived” particles (LLPs) that would be produced in the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam and decay inside the ICARUS liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC). Such LLPs would be a signal of hidden sector models that can address outstanding issues in particle physics such as the strong CP problem and the microphysical origin of dark matter. I will show results from a new analysis in ICARUS which searched for di-muon decays from a long-lived particle produced in kaon decay in the NuMI beam. The search is sensitive to new areas of parameter space for the Higgs portal hidden sector model, as well as an axion-like particle model. This is the first physics result to come out of the ICARUS detector at Fermilab, and I will also discuss the calibration of the detector which enables the analysis. Furthermore, with the start of data-taking for the Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) this year, the SBN program at Fermilab is now fully operational and ready to commence its principal physics goal: the search for short-baseline neutrino oscillations. I’ll briefly introduce our plans towards this result. 

Gray Putnam, Lederman Fellow, Fermilab

Host: Susan Dittmer