CERN | My story
photo from the private archive
ARKADIUSZ BUBAK, PhD, DSc, Associate Professor
My adventure with neutrinos and the ICARUS experiment (Imaging Cosmic And Rare Underground Signal) began a little later, in 2011, when I took up the topic of neutrinos after a brief involvement in another CERN experiment, namely NA61/SHINE. It is not without a need to mention the NA61 experiment. When I was involved in it, the data was collected for use in another neutrino experiment T2K (Tokai to Kamioka). T2K is also a recognized CERN experiment (RE13 – The long-baseline neutrino experiment). And this encounter with neutrinos in the NA61 experiment pushed me to work on neutrinos, first in the ICARUS experiment, and now in T2K (Tokai to Kamioka), WCTE (Water Cherenkov Test Experiment at CERN), and Hyper-Kamiokande.
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CERN MY STORY
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CNGS (CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso) beam and ICARUS T600 detector The involvement of physicists from the Institute of Physics of the University of Silesia in experimental neutrino physics dates back to 2001. This involvement later resulted in participation in the ICARUS experiment using the liquid-argon (LAr) time projection chamber (LAr-TPC) detector ICARUS T600, where one of the sources of neutrinos was the CNGS project (CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso).My adventure with neutrinos and the ICARUS experiment (Imaging Cosmic And Rare Underground Signal) began a little later, in 2011, when I took up the topic of neutrinos after a brief involvement in another CERN experiment, namely NA61/SHINE. It is not without a need to mention the NA61 experiment. When I was involved in it, the data was collected for use in another neutrino experiment T2K (Tokai to Kamioka). T2K is also a recognized CERN experiment (RE13 – The long-baseline neutrino experiment). And this encounter with neutrinos in the NA61 experiment pushed me to work on neutrinos, first in the ICARUS experiment, and now in T2K (Tokai to Kamioka), WCTE (Water Cherenkov Test Experiment at CERN), and Hyper-Kamiokande. The ICARUS T600 detector is the largest single-phase modular liquid-argon detector ever built, with a time projection chamber with a cryostat containing 760 tons of LAr. The T600 is a result of many years of R&D studies performed by the ICARUS Collaboration, with laboratory and industrial prototypes, with increasing argon active mass. In 2013 the ICARUS T600 LAr-TPC completed its successful, continuous three-year operation at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) underground laboratory, where it was exposed to both the ‘CERN to Gran Sasso’ neutrino beam (CNGS) and cosmic rays. Its excellent calorimetric resolution and topology reconstruction capabilities permit the performance of a broad physics programme, which goes from nucleon decay to the study of the oscillation of the neutrinos from the CNGS beam. Among the studies carried out on the neutrino beam, a sensitive search for anomalous electron-neutrino appearance and muon-neutrino disappearance was performed. The electron-neutrino appearance study aimed at experimental verification or exclusion of the neutrino anomalies suggested by the LSND signal. The problem of superluminal propagation of the CNGS neutrinos from CERN to LNGS, suggested by the experiment OPERA, was also verified. In 2013, ICARUS T600 completed a successful, continuous three-year operation at the LNGS underground laboratory. The physical and technical results achieved confirmed the maturity of this particle detection technique, which led to its use in subsequent neutrino experiments. The project continues at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) under the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program (SBN). Before its transfer to FNAL, the ICARUS detector was overhauled and refurbished at the CERN facility (part of the CERN Neutrino Platform) under the WA104/NP01 programme. |
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