Collaborative Research: WoU-MMA: Development of an Advanced Data Selection System for the DUNE Far Detector

One of the major intellectual achievements of the 20th century was the development of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. This model succeeded in classifying all of the elementary particles known at the time into a hierarchy of groups having similar quantum properties. The validity of this model to date was confirmed by the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. However, the Standard Model as it currently exists leaves open many questions about the universe, including such fundamental questions as to why the Higgs mass has the value it has and why there is no antimatter in the universe. One of the primary areas to search for answers to these and other open questions about the universe, how it came to be, and why it is the way it is, is to focus on a study of the properties of neutrinos and to use what we know and can learn about neutrinos as probes of science Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Detailed measurements of the interactions of these unusual particles are one of the most promising ways to probe for new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Neutrinos can be produced from ground-based facilities, such as the accelerator complex at Fermilab, and can also come from astrophysical origin. The interactions of these neutrinos will be recorded and studied in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility located in South Dakota. DUNE, with its large liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers, will study the oscillations of the accelerator-based neutrino beam from Fermilab, and additionally is sensitive to extra-terrestrial neutrinos, including those from supernova explosions, solar neutrinos, and other sources. The challenge for the experimenters is the vastly different energies of the neutrinos produced by Fermilab and those from many interesting astrophysical sources.

Through this award, which includes support from the NSF Windows on the Universe Program, the Columbia group will initiate the development of trigger and data acquisition strategies that can provide a guide for DUNE detection of low energy electron neutrino interactions in Liquid Argon. This includes the use of machine learning techniques for triggering, an approach which has recently been demonstrated to be a disruptive technology for event selection and reconstruction in liquid Argon.

The broader impact of this triggering approach is significant. It has the potential to allow the DUNE experiment to make direct and significant contributions to the international scientific effort in Multi-Messenger Astrophysics and time-domain astrophysics, through access to solar and supernova neutrinos and as well as to searches for proton decay.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.