Short-Baseline Neutrino program

Cartoon of three balls in different shades of pink popping out of doors marked for the three different kinds of neutrinos: tau, muon and electron. To the right of them, three tiny scientists in white lab coats on scaffolding.

Back when it was theorized, scientists weren’t sure they would ever detect the neutrino. Now scientists, including some at Fermilab, are searching for a version of the particle that could be even more elusive.

Scientist and 2021 URA Early Career Award winner stands at a chalkboard working on equations.

Fermilab’s Pedro Machado has won the 2021 Universities Research Association Early Career Award for his theoretical work on neutrino science that helps experimentalists with novel search strategies and scientific questions worth exploring.

From CERN Courier, July 7, 2020: A new generation of accelerator and reactor experiments is opening an era of high-precision neutrino measurements to tackle questions such as leptonic CP violation, the mass hierarchy and the possibility of a fourth “sterile” neutrino. These include the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab, and Fermilab’s NOvA and Short-Baseline Neutrino programs.

From Scientific American, July 2020: Evidence for the existence of a sterile neutrino is compelling, but the idea that certain experiments might be detecting a fourth neutrino remains controversial. Projects around the world seek to settle the matter, including Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino program.

From the University of Bern, May 2020: The University of Bern and Fermilab partner on three neutrino projects aimed at a thorough study of some postulated properties of the ghostly particle: MicroBooNE, SBND and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, the latter to be considered the world’s ultimate neutrino observatory.