Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operated by the Fermi Research Alliance (FRA), a joint venture of the University of Chicago, and the Universities Research Association (URA); although in 2023, the Department of Energy (DOE) opened bidding for a new contractor due to concerns about the FRA performance. Fermilab is a part of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor.
The Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) was a scintillation counter at Los Alamos National Laboratory that measured the number of neutrinos being produced by an accelerator neutrino source. The LSND project was created to look for evidence of neutrino oscillation, and its results conflict with the Standard Model expectation of only three neutrino flavors, when considered in the context of other solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillation experiments. Cosmological data bound the mass of the sterile neutrino to ms < 0.26eV (0.44eV) at 95% (99.9%) confidence limit, excluding at high significance the sterile neutrino hypothesis as an explanation of the LSND anomaly. The controversial LSND result was tested by the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab which has found similar evidence for oscillations. The hint is currently undergoing further tests at MicroBooNE at Fermilab.
Sterile neutrinos are hypothetical particles that interact only via gravity and not via any of the other fundamental interactions of the Standard Model. The term sterile neutrino is used to distinguish them from the known, ordinary active neutrinos in the Standard Model, which carry an isospin charge of ±+1/ 2 and engage in the weak interaction. The term typically refers to neutrinos with right-handed chirality, which may be inserted into the Standard Model. Particles that possess the quantum numbers of sterile neutrinos and masses great enough such that they do not interfere with the current theory of Big Bang nucleosynthesis are often called neutral heavy leptons (NHLs) or heavy neutral leptons (HNLs).
MiniBooNE is a Cherenkov detector experiment at Fermilab designed to observe neutrino oscillations. A neutrino beam consisting primarily of muon neutrinos is directed at a detector filled with 800 tons of mineral oil and lined with 1,280 photomultiplier tubes. An excess of electron neutrino events in the detector would support the neutrino oscillation interpretation of the LSND result.
SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment (SciBooNE), was a neutrino experiment located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in the USA. It observed neutrinos of the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) that are produced when protons from the Fermilab Booster-accelerator were made to hit a beryllium target; this led to the production of many short-lived particles that decayed into neutrinos. The SciBooNE detector was located some 100 meters downrange from the beryllium target, with a 50 meter decay-volume (where the particle decay into neutrinos) and absorber combined with 50 meters of solid ground between the target and the detector to absorb other particles than neutrinos. The neutrino-beam continued through SciBooNE and ground to the MiniBooNE-detector, located some 540 meters downrange from the target.
Antonio Ereditato is an Italian physicist, currently Research Professor at the University of Chicago, associate researcher at Fermilab, Batavia, USA, and Emeritus professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he has been Director of the Laboratory for High Energy Physics from 2006 to 2020. From 2021 to 2022 Ereditato has been Visiting Professor at the Yale University, USA. He carried out research activities in the field of experimental neutrino physics, of weak interactions and strong interactions with experiments conducted at CERN, in Japan, at Fermilab in United States and at the LNGS in Italy. Ereditato has accomplished several R&D studies on particle detectors: wire chambers, calorimeters, time projection chambers, nuclear emulsions, detectors for medical applications.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a neutrino experiment under construction, with a near detector at Fermilab and a far detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility that will observe neutrinos produced at Fermilab. An intense beam of trillions of neutrinos from the production facility at Fermilab will be sent over a distance of 1,300 kilometers (810 mi) with the goal of understanding the role of neutrinos in the universe. More than 1,000 collaborators work on the project. The experiment is designed for a 20-year period of data collection.
ICARUS is a physics experiment aimed at studying neutrinos. It was located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) where it started operations in 2010. After completion of its operations there, it was refurbished at CERN for re-use at Fermilab, in the same neutrino beam as the MiniBooNE, MicroBooNE and Short Baseline Near Detector (SBND) experiments. The ICARUS detector was then taken apart for transport and reassembled at Fermilab, where data collection is expected to begin in fall 2021.
The Department of Physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology has over 30 faculty members. It offers undergraduate academic programs including B.S. in physics, applied physics, and physics education and graduate programs in physics and health physics. Many notable physicists have both taught and studied at IIT including Nobel Prize for Physics laureates Leon M. Lederman and Jack Steinberger.
MicroBooNE is a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. It is located in the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) beamline where neutrinos are produced by colliding protons from Fermilab's booster-accelerator on a beryllium target; this produces many short-lived particles that decay into neutrinos. The neutrinos pass through solid ground, through another experiment called ANNIE, then solid ground, then through the Short Baseline Near Detector, then ground again before it arrives at the MicroBooNE detector 470 meters downrange from the target. After MicroBooNE the neutrinos continue to the MiniBooNE detector and to the ICARUS detector. MicroBooNE is also exposed to the neutrino beam from the Main Injector (NuMI) which enter the detector at a different angle.
Heidi Marie Schellman is an American particle physicist at Oregon State University (OSU), where she heads the Department of Physics. She is an expert in Quantum chromodynamics.
Janet Marie Conrad is an American experimental physicist, researcher, and professor at MIT studying elementary particle physics. Her work focuses on neutrino properties and the techniques for studying them. In recognition of her efforts, Conrad has been the recipient of several highly prestigious awards during her career, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the American Physical Society Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award.
An accelerator neutrino is a human-generated neutrino or antineutrino obtained using particle accelerators, in which beam of protons is accelerated and collided with a fixed target, producing mesons which then decay into neutrinos. Depending on the energy of the accelerated protons and whether mesons decay in flight or at rest it is possible to generate neutrinos of a different flavour, energy and angular distribution. Accelerator neutrinos are used to study neutrino interactions and neutrino oscillations taking advantage of high intensity of neutrino beams, as well as a possibility to control and understand their type and kinematic properties to a much greater extent than for neutrinos from other sources.
Jocelyn Monroe is an American British experimental particle physicist who is a professor at the University of Oxford. Her research considers the development of novel detectors as part of the search for dark matter. In 2016 she was honoured with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her work on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.
Jessica Esquivel is a Black Mexican and American physicist and science communicator, working at the Muon g-2 particle physics experiment at Fermilab. She is an advocate for gender and racial equity in science, and a lead organiser of #BlackInPhysics, a campaign to recognize and amplify the work of Black physicists worldwide. She was also selected as an AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador in 2019.
Kevin T. Pitts is an American high energy particle physicist. In addition to his faculty appointment at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, in 2021 he was appointed chief research officer at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory. His research interests have included the CDF experiment and the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab.
Bonnie T. Fleming is an experimental particle physicist who has held leadership roles in several physics experiments and at Fermilab. Since 2022, she has been Fermilab's chief research officer and deputy director for science and technology. She has also served on the faculty of Yale University and the University of Chicago. Fleming is an expert in neutrino physics and liquid argon time projection chamber detector technology.
Regina Abby Rameika is an American experimental neutrino physicist known for her work with the DONUT collaboration at Fermilab, which provided the first direct observations of the tau neutrino. She continues to work as a distinguished scientist at Fermilab, where she is co-spokesperson for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE).
Alysia Diane Marino is an American experimental particle physicist. She is the Jesse L. Mitchell Endowed Chair at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In 2022, Marino was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for "major contributions to understanding the physics of neutrino production and interactions, and for leadership in data analysis in the T2K and NA61/SHINE collaborations."
Donna Lynne Naples is an American neutrino physicist whose research involves both the use of particle accelerators to generate neutrino beams, and the use of underground neutrino detectors to study cosmic neutrinos and neutrino oscillation. She is a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh.
