News at work

Scientists working on the MINERvA experiment at Fermilab have examined a few ways neutrons can affect the measurements of antineutrino interactions.

The Dark Energy Survey has delivered dark energy constraints combining information from four of its primary cosmological probes for the first time, an approach that may help design other experiments into cosmic acceleration.

Future particle colliders will need strong magnets to steer high-energy particle beams as they travel close to the speed of light on their circular path. A group at Fermilab has achieved a record field strength of 14.1 teslas for a particle accelerator steering magnet, breaking the 11-year record.

Superconducting magnets are the workhorses that steer particle beams in most particle accelerators. The problem is that these magnets require costly cryogens to cool. Now, researchers have found a way to create high-temperature superconducting magnets. A group at Fermilab proposed a novel magnet design that works at much higher temperatures. It could substantially simplify magnet fabrication and cooling.

In particle accelerators, the greater a beam’s intensity, the more opportunities there are to study particle interactions. One way to increase the intensity is to merge two beams with a technique called slip-stacking. However, when combining them, the beams’ interaction may cause instability. A Fermilab scientist has created a successful model of the fraught dynamics of two particle beams in close contact, leading to smoother sailing in this area of particle acceleration.

The MINOS+ collaboration at Fermilab collected data with a medium-energy neutrino beam from September 2013 to June 2016. The collaboration has exploited the data to set more stringent boundaries on the possibility of sterile neutrinos mixing with muon neutrinos.

The MINERvA neutrino experiment has a new crime scene investigation technique, one that takes a hard look at the traces that particles leave before fleeing the scene. Researchers used a new technique in a recent MINERvA neutrino investigation. And the new insights they gained on the workings of nuclear effects can help other neutrino experiments.

Scientists on the ArgoNeuT experiment have developed a method that enables them to better distinguish the tracks that particles leave behind in liquid argon, as well as a way to better differentiate between signals and background. And thanks to the software’s great performance, ArgoNeuT will aid larger neutrino experiments in their quest to understand the nature of the subtle neutrino.

For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that low-energy neutrinos can be thoroughly identified with a liquid-argon particle detector. The results, obtained with the ArgoNeuT experiment, are promising for experiments that use liquid argon to catch neutrinos, including the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

Researchers demonstrate the cryogen-free operation of a superconducting radio-frequency cavity that might ease barriers to its use in societal applications.