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DOE OSTI2025

Status and Prospects of SBND

The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is one of the neutrino detectors positioned along the the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab. It is the near detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program, as well as having a wide-ranging independent physics program. The detector began taking neutrino data in the summer of 2024 and has already collected over 1 million neutrino events. Thanks to its unique combination of measurement resolution and statistics, SBND will soon carry out a rich program of neutrino interaction measurements and novel searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). As the SBN near detector, it will enable the full potential of the SBN sterile neutrino program by performing a precise characterisation of the unoscillated event rate and constraining BNB flux and neutrino-argon cross-section systematic uncertainties. In this talk, the physics reach, current status, and future prospects of SBND are discussed.

Paton, Josephine [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2026

Status of the Short-Baseline Near Detector at Fermilab

The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is one of the Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detectors positioned along the axis of the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab, and is the near detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program. The detector has completed Run 1, successfully recording approximately 3 million neutrino interactions, and started Run 2 in the autumn of 2025. SBND is characterized by superb imaging capabilities and will record around 3 million neutrino interactions per year. Thanks to its unique combination of measurement resolution and statistics, SBND will soon carry out a rich program of neutrino interaction measurements and novel searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). As the near detector, it will enable the full potential of the SBN sterile neutrino program by performing a precise characterization of the unoscillated event rate and constraining the BNB flux and neutrino-argon cross-section systematic uncertainties. In this talk, the physics reach, current status, and future prospects of SBND are discussed.

Del Tutto, Marco [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2026

Status of the Short-Baseline Near Detector at Fermilab

Del Tutto, Marco [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2024

Searching for Muon to Electron Transition [Slides]

Summary : Searches for violations of fundamental symmetries and conservation laws - Powerful Probes of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM); Charged Lepton Flavor violation : Mu to E conversion; 4-orders of magnitude improvements in BR; SD process can dominate the conversion process in ALP models; fa > O(100)TeV can be achieved, complementary role.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Reconstruction of the BNB and NuMI Neutrino Bunch Structure with ICARUS

ICARUS serves as the Far Detector of the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program at Fermilab, sitting on-axis on the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and 6$^\circ$ off-axis from the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam. Neutrinos from both beams inherit the timing sub-structure of their parent proton spills, which is in turn derived from either the Booster's or the Main Injector's synchrotron acceleration. Since neutrino propagation introduces only a constant offset, their timing structure is preserved as they travel. Identifying this structure in data represents a powerful tool for selecting neutrino events and searching for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). This poster presents the preliminary reconstruction of the BNB and NuMI neutrino bunch structure with ICARUS data, exploiting only the precise timing of ICARUS optical readout system to both locate and assign a time to each interaction.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Reconstruction of the BNB and NuMI Neutrino Bunch Structure with ICARUS

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Toward SBND's First Cross Section Measurements

The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is one of the Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detectors positioned along the axis of the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab, and is the near detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program. The detector completed commissioning and began taking neutrino data in the summer of 2024. SBND is characterized by superb imaging capabilities and recorded over two million neutrino interactions during its first physics run, which concluded in July 2025. Thanks to its unique combination of measurement resolution and statistics, SBND is carrying out a rich program of neutrino interaction measurements and novel searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). As the near detector, it will enable the full potential of the SBN sterile neutrino program by performing a precise characterization of the unoscillated event rate and constraining BNB flux and neutrino-argon cross-section systematic uncertainties. In addition, SBND will provide valuable model constraints for DUNE by leveraging the significant overlap in phase space between neutrino interactions in the two experiments. In this talk, I will present the current efforts within the SBND cross section program, discuss their status, and outline the plans for the first physics publications.

Oh, Sungbin [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2025

Status of the Proton EDM Experiment (pEDM)

The Proton EDM Experiment (pEDM) is the first direct search for the proton electric dipole moment (EDM) with the aim of being the first experiment to probe the Standard Model (SM) prediction of any particle EDM. Phase-I of pEDM will achieve $10^{-29} e\cdot$cm, improving current indirect limits by four orders of magnitude. This will establish a new standard of precision in nucleon EDM searches and offer a unique sensitivity to better understand the Strong CP problem. The experiment is ideally positioned to explore physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), with sensitivity to axionic dark matter via the signal of an oscillating proton EDM and across a wide mass range of BSM models from $\mathcal{O}(1\text{GeV})$ to $\mathcal{O}(10^3\text{TeV})$. Utilizing the frozen-spin technique in a highly symmetric storage ring that leverages existing infrastructure at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), pEDM builds upon the technological foundation and experimental expertise of the highly successful Muon $g$$-$$2$ Experiments. With significant R&D and prototyping already underway, pEDM is preparing a conceptual design report (CDR) to offer a cost-effective, high-impact path to discovering new sources of CP violation and advancing our understanding of fundamental physics. It will play a vital role in complementing the physics goals of the next-generation collider while simultaneously contributing to sustaining particle physics research and training early-career researchers during gaps between major collider operations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2022

A strongly first-order electroweak phase transition from Loryons

We study the effect of BSM particles receiving most of their mass from their coupling to the Higgs boson (“Loryons”) on the electroweak phase transition. The existence of BSM Loryons would imply that electroweak symmetry must be non-linearly realized in the effective theory of the Standard Model. Since, by definition, Loryons have a significant coupling to the Higgs, they are expected to have a significant effect on the Higgs effective potential and thereby the electroweak phase transition. We show that the BSM Loryon parameter space viable under current experimental and theoretical constraints overlaps heavily with the parameter space in which a strongly first-order phase transition is predicted. The portion of the experimentally allowed parameter space which gives a strongly first-order phase transition is significantly larger for Loryons as compared to non-Loryons.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2021

Review of opportunities for new long-lived particle triggers in Run 3 of the Large Hadron Collider

Long-lived particles (LLPs) are highly motivated signals of physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) with great discovery potential and unique experimental challenges. The LLP search programme made great advances during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but many important regions of signal space remain unexplored. Dedicated triggers are crucial to improve the potential of LLP searches, and their development and expansion is necessary for the full exploitation of the new data. The public discussion of triggers has therefore been a relevant theme in the recent LLP literature, in the meetings of the LLP@LHC Community workshop and in the respective experiments. This paper documents the ideas collected during talks and discussions at these Workshops, benefiting as well from the ideas under development by the trigger community within the experimental collaborations. We summarise the theoretical motivations of various LLP scenarios leading to highly elusive signals, reviewing concrete ideas for triggers that could greatly extend the reach of the LHC experiments. We thus expect this document to encourage further thinking for both the phenomenological and experimental communities, as a stepping stone to further develop the LLP@LHC physics programme.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Data-directed search for new physics based on symmetries of the SM

We propose exploiting symmetries (exact or approximate) of the Standard Model (SM) to search for physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) using the data-directed paradigm (DDP). Symmetries are very powerful because they provide two samples that can be compared without requiring simulation. Focusing on the data, exclusive selections which exhibit significant asymmetry can be identified efficiently and marked for further study. Using a simple and generic test statistic which compares two matrices already provides good sensitivity, only slightly worse than that of the profile likelihood ratio test statistic which relies on the exact knowledge of the signal shape. This can be exploited for rapidly scanning large portions of the measured data, in an attempt to identify regions of interest. We also demonstrate that weakly supervised Neural Networks could be used for this purpose as well.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Scalar field couplings to quadratic curvature and decay into gravitons

Any field, even if it lives in a completely hidden sector, interacts with the visible sector at least via the gravitational interaction. In this paper, we show that a scalar field in such a hidden sector generically couples to the quadratic curvature via dimension five operators, i.e., ΦR 2 , ΦR μν R μν , ΦR μνρσ R μνρσ , ΦR μνρσ R~ μνρσ , because they can emerge if there exist particles heavier than it. We derive these scalar couplings to the quadratic curvature by integrating out heavy particles in a systematic manner. Such couplings are of phenomenological interest since some of them induce the scalar decay into the graviton pair. We point out that the decay of a scalar field can produce a substantial amount of the stochastic cosmic graviton background at high frequency since the suppression scale of these operators is given by the mass of heavy particles not by the Planck scale. The resultant graviton spectrum is computed in some concrete models.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Ultralight millicharged dark matter via misalignment

We explore the cosmology and phenomenology of millicharged and millicharge-like dark matter with masses from 1 eV to 10 keV and charges of 10 -18 to 10 -14 . Dark matter in this mass range cannot be thermally produced, but can arise from non-thermal mechanisms. We propose a concrete model employing a spontaneously broken approximate global symmetry, in which millicharged dark matter is produced via the misalignment mechanism. We show that this production mechanism is cosmologically consistent and compatible with the observed dark matter abundance. This model can be implemented using either fundamental scalars or hidden-sector quarks, and coupled either to the Standard Model photon or to a hidden photon. We then consider the phenomenology of light millicharged dark matter, regardless of its cosmological origin, and determine the parameter space consistent with existing experiments and observations. A significant part of the new parameter space we consider may be accessible in the near future through direct deflection experiments, measurements of the cosmic microwave background blackbody spectrum, and future constraints on plasma instabilities due to dark matter self-interaction.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2024

An effective cosmological collider

Effective field theories (EFTs) of heavy particles coupled to the inflaton are rife with operator redundancies, frequently obscured by sensitivity to both boundary terms and field redefinitions. We initiate a systematic study of these redundancies by establishing a minimal operator basis for an archetypal example, the abelian gauge-Higgs-inflaton EFT. Working up to dimension 9, we show that certain low-dimensional operators are entirely redundant and identify new non-redundant operators with potentially interesting cosmological collider signals. Our methods generalize straightforwardly to other EFTs of heavy particles coupled to the inflaton.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2024

The new physics case for beam-dump experiments with accelerated muon beams

As the field examines a future muon collider as a possible successor to the LHC, we must consider how to fully utilize not only the high-energy particle collisions, but also any lower-energy staging facilities necessary in the R&D process. An economical and efficient possibility is to use the accelerated muon beam from either the full experiment or from cooling and acceleration tests in beam-dump experiments. Beam-dump experiments are complementary to the main collider as they achieve sensitivity to very small couplings with minimal instrumentation. We demonstrate the utility of muon beam-dump experiments for new physics searches at energies from 10 GeV to 5 TeV. We find that, even at low energies like those accessible at staging or demonstrator facilities, it is possible to probe new regions of parameter space for a variety of generic BSM models, including muonphilic, leptophilic, L μ − L τ , and dark photon scenarios. Such experiments could therefore provide opportunities for discovery of new physics well before the completion of the full multi-TeV collider.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Axion dark matter from frictional misalignment

We study the impact of sphaleron-induced thermal friction on the axion dark-matter abundance due to the interaction of an axion-like particle (ALP) with a dark non-abelian gauge sector in a secluded thermal bath. Thermal friction can either enhance the axion relic density by delaying the onset of oscillations or suppress it by damping them. We derive an analytical formula for the frictional adiabatic invariant, which remains constant along the axion evolution and which allows us to compute the axion relic density in a general set-up. Even in the most minimal scenario, in which a single gauge group is responsible for both the generation of the ALP mass and the friction force, we find that the resulting dark-matter abundance from the misalignment mechanism deviates from the standard scenario for axion masses m a ≳ 100 eV. We also generalize our analysis to the case where the gauge field that induces friction and the gauge sector responsible for the ALP mass are distinct and their couplings to the axion have a large hierarchy as can be justified by means of alignment or clockwork scenarios. We find that it is easy to open up the ALP parameter space where the resulting axion abundance matches the observed dark-matter relic density both in the traditionally over- and underabundant regimes. This conclusion also holds for the QCD axion.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Analytic bounds on late-time axion-scalar cosmologies

The cosmological dynamics of multiple scalar/pseudoscalar fields are difficult to solve, especially when the field-space metric is curved. This presents a challenge in determining whether a given model can support cosmic acceleration, without solving for the on-shell solution. In this work, we present bounds on late-time FLRW-cosmologies in classes of theories that involve arbitrary numbers of scalar and pseudoscalar fields coupled both kinetically (leading to a curved field space metric) and through scalar potentials. Such bounds are proven analytically, independently of initial conditions, with no approximation in the field equations and without referring to explicit solutions. Besides their broad applications to cosmological model building, our bounds can be applied to studying asymptotic cosmologies of certain classes of string compactifications.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Shaping dark photon spectral distortions

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum is an extraordinary tool for exploring physics beyond the Standard Model. The exquisite precision of its measurement makes it particularly sensitive to small effects caused by hidden sector interactions. In particular, CMB spectral distortions can unveil the existence of dark photons which are kinetically coupled to the standard photon. In this work, we use the COBE-FIRAS dataset to derive accurate and robust limits on photon-to-dark-photon oscillations for a large range of dark photon masses, from 10$^{−10}$ to 10$^{−4}$ eV. We consider in detail the redshift dependence of the bounds, computing CMB distortions due to photon injection/removal using a Green’s function method. Our treatment improves on previous results, which had set limits studying energy injection/removal into baryons rather than photon injection/removal, or ignoring the redshift evolution of distortions. The difference between our treatment and previous ones is particularly noticeable in the predicted spectral shape of the distortions, a smoking gun signature for photon-to-dark-photon oscillations. The characterization of the spectral shape is crucial for future CMB missions, which could improve the present sensitivity by orders of magnitude, exploring regions of the dark photon parameter space that are otherwise difficult to access [inline-graphic not available: see fulltext].

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗