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Sowjanya Gollapinni, PhD
MicroBooNE is a 170-ton liquid argon neutrino detector located at Fermilab on the Booster Neutrino Beamline. MicroBooNE started taking data since 2015 and in late 2021, completed data collection after successfully running for ~6 years. MicroBooNE's primary goals are to resolve the low-energy electromagnetic anomaly observed by the predecessor experiment MiniBooNE and to make neutrino-argon interaction measurements. MicroBooNE is also providing critical R&D input to future multi-kiloton scale detectors such as DUNE. Gollapinni and her team are involved in the following activities on MicroBooNE:
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Detector Controls and Monitoring System experts
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Development of calibration techniques and performing detector physics measurements
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Neutrino-argon interaction cross section measurements
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Low energy excess analysis under single photon hypothesis
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Check out our Group News Page (under 2021 highlights) for first results from MicroBooNE shedding light on the MiniBooNE anomaly
MicroBooNE
Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program
The Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program consists of three LArTPC detectors (SBND, MicroBooNE, ICARUS) located on the Booster Neutrino Beamline (BNB) at different distances. The goal of the SBN program is to definitively resolve the question of sterile neutrinos where there are existing hints along with performing neutrino-argon cross section measurements and LArTPC R&D. The ICARUS detector has commissioned in 2021 and neutrino beam data taking is ongoing. The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is scheduled to be commissioned in 2023 and is currently undergoing construction and installation. SBND is a 112-ton active volume LArTPC detector and will record over a million neutrino interactions per year. The large statistics of SBND will allow neutrino-argon interaction measurements at an unprecedented precision providing crucial inputs to the SBN and DUNE programs. Gollapinni and her team are primarily involved in developing and building the detector controls and monitoring system for SBND along with construction and installation activities.
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SBND
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a US-led international mega science project. It is the next generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment poised to deliver rich physics: resolving neutrino mass hierarchy (Which neutrino is the lightest?), measuring charge-parity violation (CPV) in the neutrino sector (Why is our universe matter-dominated?), detection of supernovae bursts, and nucleon decay searches to name a few. DUNE will measure and compare oscillations from neutrinos and anti-neutrinos in order to probe CPV. DUNE will be composed of a near detector (at Fermilab) and a suite of far detectors, 800 miles away, 1.5 km underground at Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota. The four far detectors will be LArTPCs totaling a liquid argon volume of ~70 kilotons (40 kiloton active volume).
DUNE will be the largest LArTPC experiment ever to be built and will receive the most intense neutrino beam from Fermilab's Booster neutrino beamline with an average beam energy of ~3 GeV. The Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) will provide the near and far detector infrastructures needed for DUNE along with the Mega Watt scale neutrino beam upgrade. DUNE is scheduled to start the construction of the first far detector in 2024 with neutrino beam anticipated in late 2020s. An extensive DUNE prototyping program (ProtoDUNEs) is currently underway at the CERN Neutrino Platform to test and validate various technologies being developed for DUNE. The ProtoDUNE Horizontal Drift (HD) detector successfully took particle beam data in 2018-2020 and analysis of that data is currently underway. The ProtoDUNE Phase-2 program is scheduled to start in late 2022 and will test many new technologies including the calibration systems being developed by LANL. Gollapinni and her team are involved in several efforts for DUNE:
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Development of novel calibration systems in particular laser-based and neutron-based calibration systems
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Development of Slow Controls and Cryogenic Instrumentation
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Development of calibration strategy & techniques
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Proton and neutron interaction measurements on Argon at ProtoDUNE
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Construction and installation activities for ProtoDUNEs at CERN
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