SHiP: a new facility with a dedicated detector for studying $\nu_\tau$ properties and nucleon structure functions

TL;DR

The SHiP facility at CERN aims to explore new physics by studying tau neutrino properties, nucleon structure functions, and searching for long-lived particles using a hybrid detector with emulsion and electronic components.

Contribution

This paper proposes a novel experimental setup at CERN combining emulsion and electronic detectors for comprehensive neutrino and long-lived particle studies.

Findings

Design of a hybrid neutrino detector with emulsion and electronic components

Capability to measure tau neutrino cross-sections and angular distributions

Potential to discover long-lived particles below 10 GeV/c^2 mass

Abstract

SHIP is a new general purpose fixed target facility, proposed at the CERN SPS accelerator. In five years, $2\times 10^{20}$ protons of 400 GeV/c momentum will be dumped on a Molybdenum target. A detector downstream of the target will allow a search to made for long-lived particles with masses below O(10) GeV/c$^2$ foreseen in several extensions of the Standard Model. Another dedicated detector will allow the study of active neutrino cross-sections and angular distributions. The neutrino detector consists of an emulsion target, based on the Emulsion Cloud Chamber technology fruitfully employed in the OPERA experiment. The Emulsion Cloud Chamber will be placed in a magnetic field, with the so-called Compact Emulsion Spectrometer, a few cm thick chamber for the charge and momentum measurement of hadrons. This will provide the leptonic number measurement also in the hadronic tau decay channels. The detector will be hybrid, using nuclear emulsions and electronic detectors for the time stamp of the events and the measurement of the muon momentum. The muon system will also be based on the design of the one used in the OPERA experiment.