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I wrote these blurbs during one of my grant applications. They may be a little dense. Please feel free to contact me if you'd like more information about any of these experiments.
MiniBooNE
Since 2004 I have been an active member of MiniBooNE, an accelerator-based neutrino experiment located at Fermilab. A previous oscillation experiment, LSND, observed a significant excess of events that were best fit by anti-νμ → anti-νe oscillations. Oscillations at the mass splitting required by LSND do not fit with well-established oscillation observations from solar and atmospheric oscillations. Confirmation of LSND-style oscillations will require further extensions to the Standard Model. Before we can begin exploring the possible causes for LSND, we need to first verify the observed excess of events. MiniBooNE was designed to fully explore this claim, using νμ → νe and anti-νμ → anti-νe oscillation channels. In addition, MiniBooNE has been producing some excellent, and world's first, cross section measurements.
MINERνA
The University of Florida group joined MINERνA
in November, 2008. MINERνA is also an accelerator-based neutrino experiment, located at Fermilab.
MINERνA is located in the NuMI beamline, upstream of the MINOS detector.
The global neutrino community is
entering an era of precision neutrino measurements. This requires that we have a precise knowledge of cross section interaction rates,
final state interactions, and nuclear effects. Current neutrino cross sections are poorly known, with 20 to 100
percent total error. There are also several unresolved discrepancies in various measurements, for example, the high axial
mass extracted from K2K and MiniBooNE CCQE sample, and an unusual coherent pion production from K2K and
SciBooNE. MINERνA
is a neutrino scattering experiment with a broad physics program. MINERνA will produce
measurements in the 1-10 GeV range. No other experiment exists to perform precision measurements in MINERνA's energy range!
MINERνA will produce several cross section measurements, study strange particle production,
nuclear effects, and parton distribution functions.
OscSNS
In the future I hope to have a new experiment, OscSNS, funded. OscSNS will be located at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), Oak Ridge, TN. There the interaction of high energy protons with a liquid mercury target produces, in addition to the spallation neutrons, copious pions that decay to provide a beautiful neutrino beam comprising νμ, νe and anti-νμ components. OscSNS is a multi-purpose experiment that will perform world-record precision neutrino cross section measurements, search for neutrino oscillations, and search for light sterile neutrinos. OscSNS is in the process of updating our proposal (Fall 2012). I am one of the co-spokespeople of this experiment.
