Public Abstract
Neutrino and Nucleon Decay (NN) Experiments
Proposal Period: April 1, 2024 - March 31, 2026
Chang Kee Jung, Stony Brook University (Principal Investigator)
Clark McGrew, Stony Brook University (Co-Investigator)
Ciro Riccio, Stony Brook University (Co-Investigator)
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, The State University of New York at Stony Brook
100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3800
The Stony Brook NN group was established in 1992 and has since been supported by Department of Energy for its research activities. The science goals of the NN group are: the discovery ofCharge-Parity violation (CPV) in the lepton sector and precision measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters; the discovery of proton decay; and the observation of neutrinos from core-collapsesupernovae. In order to pursue these goals we participated in Super-Kamiokande, K2K, and MiniCAPTAIN experiments, and are currently participating in the T2K experiment in Japan and theDUNE experiment at Fermilab and the Sanford Underground Research Lab in South Dakota.
In T2K, we are the lead US institution. Jung is the US representative and was the InternationalCo-Spokesperson of the collaboration (2011-2015). He is the current PI of the grant, “T2K DetectorMaintenance and Operations Common Fund” and was the PI of the grant “The US Participationin the Construction of the T2K SuperFGD Detector as Part of the T2K ND280 Upgrade”, whichwas completed successfully in 2024.
The observation of electron-neutrino appearance by T2K paves the way to determine the massordering and to explore CPV in the lepton sector, which may hold a critical key to our understandingof the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. In the Nature paper (Cover story, April 16,2020 issue) T2K showed an initial hint of CPV. We contributed significantly to this result throughimproved event reconstruction and analysis optimization. This result makes the prospects of T2Kestablishing 3 sigma evidence and DUNE establishing 5 sigma discovery for CPV in neutrinos verybright.
We led a US-Japan program to construct a SuperFGD/3DST prototype. We played a leadingrole in taking neutron beam data at LANL, and publishing a paper on neutron cross-section on CH. We led the SuperFGD US group to construct, install, and commission the SuperFGD detector. Thedetector has been installed in the T2K ND280 magnet, and it is currently taking beam data andrecording neutrino interaction events. We are looking forward to doing exciting physics with thesenew data. In addition, we contributed significantly to the Super-Kamiokande/T2K and NOvA/T2Kjoint fits. The results from these joint fits have been released to the public recently.
In DUNE, we played a leading role in shaping the Near Detector (ND) design and establishedDUNE-PRISM as part of the ND. We played key roles in ProtoDUNE by participating in detectorconstruction (FC), installation and commissioning, and in prototyping of the photon detectionsystem (PDS) for the Far Detector 2 (FD2). We have been contributing to the FD cold electronicstesting at BNL and we are engaged in designing a combined system of FC and PDS for the FD3.
For the next two years, we propose to carry out a well balanced research program in T2K andDUNE. We propose to continue our current involvement in T2K which will provide invaluable datafor a rich physics program that is essential for graduate students, and postdocs. With the upgradedND280, we have a variety of new software and physics analysis projects. We propose to contributeto: ProtoDUNE II (vertical drift); the FD cold electronics testing and installation; FD2 PDS; FD3combined FC and PDS system (APEX); and preparation of the DUNE oscillation analysis.
Finally, we have been gradually employing AI/ML tools in our research. In particular, we are developing novel uses of AI/ML for event reconstruction to implement hyper-informative likelihoods. We plan to extend this capability to take advantage of rapid advances in AI/ML technology.
List of Collaborative Experiments:
1) DUNE Experiment
2) T2K Experiment
