The international ICARUS collaboration has released its first physics results regarding neutrino oscillation searches. The data collected with the neutrino beam at Fermilab did not show muon-neutrino disappearance. This analysis is notable for its careful consideration of uncertainties related to detector performance, demonstrating the quality of ICARUS data and advancing analysis techniques and software tools.
ICARUS, located at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, is the world’s first large liquid-argon neutrino detector. Originally operating in Italy, the detector was later moved to CERN for enhancements and then to Fermilab to join the Short Baseline Neutrino Program.
The SBN Program consists of three experiments along Fermilab’s neutrino beam, including SBND, MicroBooNE, and ICARUS. These experiments aim to study how neutrinos change as they travel through space and matter.
ICARUS is specifically searching for evidence of a fourth neutrino flavor, the sterile neutrino, as part of the 3+1 model of neutrino behavior. While no muon-neutrino disappearance was observed in ICARUS, the results are still significant for the SBN Program and set exclusion limits on the sterile-neutrino model parameters.
The collaboration’s analysis accounted for uncertainties in the data collected, leading to a robust description of the neutrino beam, interactions in liquid argon, and detector performance. These results will aid in the development of future techniques and analyses, including collaborative efforts with SBND to reduce uncertainties.
ICARUS, SBND, and MicroBooNE use liquid-argon time projection chamber technology to detect neutrinos. This technology will also be utilized in the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), spearheaded by Fermilab. DUNE, currently under construction, will be the most comprehensive neutrino experiment globally, using liquid-argon detectors pioneered by ICARUS but on a larger scale.
ICARUS is backed by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), and CERN. Fermilab, as a premier national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research, is home to the ICARUS project. Visit Fermilab’s website for more information about their research and projects.
