Expression of Interest for Neutrinos Scattering on Glass: NuSOnG

TL;DR

This paper proposes a large SiO2 neutrino detector at Fermilab to significantly increase neutrino event statistics, enabling precise measurements of weak processes and new physics searches such as lepton flavor violation.

Contribution

It introduces a new 3500-ton neutrino detector with enhanced flux and capabilities, allowing unprecedented precision in weak process measurements and new physics investigations.

Findings

Achieves over 100 times the event statistics of previous experiments.

Enables high-accuracy measurements of inverse muon decay.

Facilitates searches for lepton flavor violation and heavy neutral leptons.

Abstract

We propose a 3500 ton (3000 ton fiducial volume) SiO_2 neutrino detector with sampling calorimetry, charged particle tracking, and muon spectrometers to run in a Tevatron Fixed Target Program. Improvements to the Fermilab accelerator complex should allow substantial increases in the neutrino flux over the previous NuTeV quad triplet beamline. With 4E19 protons on target/year, a 5 year run would achieve event statistics more than 100 times higher than NuTeV. With 100 times the statistics of previous high energy neutrino experiments, the purely weak processes [\nu_{\mu} e^- \to \nu_{\mu}+ e^-] and [\nu_{\mu} e^- \to \nu_e + \mu^-] (inverse muon decay) can be measured with high accuracy for the first time. The inverse muon decay process is independent of strong interaction effects and can be used to significantly improve the flux normalization for all other processes. The high neutrino and antineutrino fluxes also make new searches for lepton flavor violation and neutral heavy leptons possible. In this document, we give a first look at the physics opportunities, detector and beam design, and calibration procedures.