Neutrino Research Paper

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The Standard Model of particle physics has proven to be one of the most powerful theories we have developed to understand the physical world. It has been carefully crafted over several decades through the dedicated work of thousands of physicists and offers some of the most precisely verified predictions of any theory. Despite these successes, it is known that the Standard Model is incomplete. While this framework is extremely adept at describing the phenomena that fall into its range of applicability, we know of many physical processes that are not predicted by the Standard Model.

The properties of neutrinos offer one of the most salient examples of the limitations of the Standard Model. The discovery of nonzero neutrino masses through measurements of neutrino oscillations not only resolved …show more content…

Evidence from the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments has hinted at the possibility of sterile neutrinos, but additional measurements are needed to draw any significant conclusions \cite{Conrad:2013}. Models which explain these results involve the introduction of at least two sterile neutrinos and make predictions that can be tested at a second generation experiment. To this end, significant effort has gone into the development of a short baseline neutrino program at Fermilab.

One significant piece of this program is the MicroBooNE experiment which will seek to answer many of the questions raised by MiniBooNE and LSND. The MicroBooNE detector is a large liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) which collects the drift electrons liberated from Ar atoms by passing charged particles. This design has the benefit of excellent calorimetry and particle identification which will be crucial to attributing the anomalies from MiniBooNE and LSND to either electrons from neutrino events or photons from processes not predicted by the Standard

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