Abstract

The ICARUS-T600 detector is the first large-scale liquid Argon TPC ever operated; its successful data-taking campaign at Gran Sasso laboratory, with CNGS beam and atmospheric neutrinos, proved the maturity of this innovative detection technology. In particular, it performed a search for sterile neutrinos through νμ to νe oscillations, observing no excess w.r.t. backgrounds and allowing to strongly constrain the parameter space, indicating a narrow region in agreement with all experimental data.A definitive answer to the sterile neutrino puzzle will be given by the SBN experiment at the Booster beam at FNAL, where ICARUS-T600 will act as far detector, by performing both appearance and disappearance measurements.

Highlights

  • Neutrino oscillations represent one of the greatest discoveries in recent particle physics; the vast majority of experimental results in the last 20 years appear consistent with a 3-neutrino scenario, characterized by three flavor eigenstates and three corresponding mass eigenstates, with small mass differences (∆m212 ∼ 8 · 10−5eV2, ∆m223 ∼ 2.5 · 10−3eV2)

  • The ICARUS-T600 detector [1, 2] was exposed to the CNGS neutrino beam from CERN, collecting a total statistics of 8.6 · 1019 protons on target, with a detector live-time higher than 93%

  • Significant experimental effort must be devoted to the Argon purification and recirculation; in the ICARUS-T600 case, the drift electron lifetime was kept higher than 7 ms during the whole data-taking period, as shown in figure 1; this results, obtained through continuous Argon recirculation both in the liquid and gas state, ensures a small signal attenuation during the drift (12% for a drift length of 1.5 meters) and represents an important milestone for future LAr-TPC with much larger drift lengths [3]

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Summary

The sterile neutrino puzzle

Neutrino oscillations represent one of the greatest discoveries in recent particle physics; the vast majority of experimental results in the last 20 years appear consistent with a 3-neutrino scenario, characterized by three flavor eigenstates (νe, νμ, ντ) and three corresponding mass eigenstates, with small mass differences (∆m212 ∼ 8 · 10−5eV2, ∆m223 ∼ 2.5 · 10−3eV2). While these results are not statistically compelling, the experimental scenario concerning the possible sterile neutrinos is far from clear, and requires a full clarification

The ICARUS-T600 experiment at LNGS
Search for atmospheric neutrinos
Measurement of muon momentum via multiple Coulomb scattering
Search for sterile neutrinos at the CNGS beam
The SBN experiment
ICARUS-T600 overhauling at CERN
Findings
Conclusions
Full Text
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