Fermilab

The international Short-Baseline Neutrino Program at Fermilab examines the properties of neutrinos, specifically how the flavor of a neutrino changes as it moves through space and matter. The program emerged from a joint proposal, submitted by three scientific collaborations, to use particle detectors to perform sensitive searches for νe appearance and νμ disappearance in the Booster Neutrino Beam. All of the detectors are types of liquid-argon time projection chambers, and each contributes to the development of this particle detection technology for the long-baseline Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE).

About 250 scientists from more than 50 institutions in Brazil, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States work on the SBN program at Fermilab. Funding is provided by CERN, the United States (DOE Office of Science and National Science Foundation), Italy (INFN), United Kingdom (STFC), Switzerland (NSF) and Brazil (FAPESP). Many people who work on SBN are also part of DUNE.

This website offers an overview of the science that the SBN Program will explore. The detailed SBN scientific goals are outlined in the SBN Program proposal, available on the HEP arXiv. The program was granted Stage 1 approval in early 2015. The Short-Baseline Neutrino Program Office, manages the Department of Energy contributions to the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program and coordinates the construction and installation activities for the Near and Far detectors.

Short-Baseline Far Detector

The ICARUS T600 detector, which comprises two cryostats holding liquid argon time projection chamber modules and photodetectors, will serve as the Short-Baseline Program Far Detector. It is the farthest from the BNB target, at a distance of 600 meters, and it is the largest of the SBN detectors, holding 500 tons of liquid argon in the active volumes. The T600 at Fermilab includes newly developed readout electronics and a new cryogenics system. The ICARUS collaboration recorded their first neutrino events in 2021.

MicroBooNE

MicroBooNE is located 470 meters from the Booster Neutrino Beam target. It consists of a 8250-wire TPC and 32 photomultiplier tubes which instrument 80 tons of liquid argon in the active volume. The detector recorded data from 2015 to 2021. Scientists us this data to obtain neutrino cross section measurements, which help explore the unexplained excess of low-energy electromagnetic events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment. The MicroBooNE measurements also contribute to other aspects of the Short-Baseline Neutrino scientific program.

Short-Baseline Near Detector

The Short-Baseline Near Detector, or SBND, is located just 110 meters from the Booster Neutrino Beam target, and has 112 tons of liquid argon within the active volume of its detection systems. The SBND cryostat is a membrane type, the same as planned for the future DUNE far detectors. The SBND time projection chamber design, and cold electronics, are not identical to those being developed for DUNE but they share many features and closely resemble one another. Commissioning of SBND is underway, starting February 2024.