First neutrino interaction candidates at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper reports the first detection of neutrino interaction candidates at the LHC, marking a significant step toward direct high-energy neutrino measurements in collider experiments.

Contribution

It presents the first observation of neutrino interaction candidates at the LHC using a pilot detector, demonstrating the feasibility of collider neutrino detection.

Findings

First neutrino interaction candidates observed at the LHC.

Pilot detector successfully collected data in the forward region.

Paves the way for future high-energy neutrino measurements.

Abstract

FASER$\nu$ at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to directly detect collider neutrinos for the first time and study their cross sections at TeV energies, where no such measurements currently exist. In 2018, a pilot detector employing emulsion films was installed in the far-forward region of ATLAS, 480 m from the interaction point, and collected 12.2 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. We describe the analysis of this pilot run data and the observation of the first neutrino interaction candidates at the LHC. This milestone paves the way for high-energy neutrino measurements at current and future colliders.