The Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC

TL;DR

The SND@LHC experiment is a novel neutrino detector at the LHC, exploring an unexplored pseudo-rapidity region to study neutrino physics, heavy flavor production, and search for feebly interacting particles, with initial results from the first year of data collection.

Contribution

This paper introduces the SND@LHC detector, a new experiment designed to measure neutrinos in a previously unexplored region at the LHC, enabling unique physics investigations.

Findings

Initial data collection has begun with the first year of operation.

The detector successfully distinguishes between all three neutrino flavors.

First analysis results are presented, marking the start of collider neutrino physics at the LHC.

Abstract

SND@LHC is a compact and stand-alone experiment to perform measurements with neutrinos produced at the LHC in a hitherto unexplored pseudo-rapidity region of 7.2 < {\eta} < 8.4, complementary to all the other experiments at the LHC. The experiment is located 480 m downstream of ATLAS IP1 in the unused TI18 tunnel. The detector is composed of a hybrid system based on an 800 kg target mass of tungsten plates, interleaved with emulsion and electronic trackers, followed downstream by a calorimeter and a muon system. The configuration allows efficiently distinguishing between all three neutrino flavours, opening a unique opportunity to probe physics of heavy flavour production at the LHC in the region that is not accessible to ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. This region is of particular interest also for future circular colliders and for predictions of very high-energy atmospheric neutrinos. The detector concept is also well suited to searching for Feebly Interacting Particles via signatures of scattering in the detector target. The first phase aims at operating the detector throughout LHC Run 3 to collect a total of 250 inverse femtobarns. This presentation reports the current status of the analysis, after the data collected in the first year of data taking. A new era of collider neutrino physics is just starting.