Collaborative Research: FASER and FASERnu at the Large Hadron Collider

The Standard Model of particle physics has been a successful theory, agreeing with decades of experimental observations involving weak, electromagnetic, and strong interactions. The discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC was further confirmation of this success. However, the Standard Model remains an incomplete theory.

The precise measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson at the LHC could provide insight into new physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). In the almost ten years since the Higgs discovery, there is no clear evidence of BSM coming from the big LHC experiments. This has spawned new experiments to make a breakthrough.

This award is such an experiment, looking for new forms of Dark Matter produced at the LHC. The experiment, FASER (Forward Search Experiment), placed almost half a kilometer away from the beam interaction points, will search for long-lived new particles predicted in various theoretical models of Dark Matter. This far-forward detector covers signals that escape the big LHC detectors like ATLAS and CMS, and many models predict low transverse momentum transfer interactions that would produce new particles like dark photons and axion-like particles that could produce signals in the FASER detector.

FASER will look for very high energy (TeV) electron positron pairs which would leave a clean, clear signal in the FASER charged- track detector. The complete detector includes scintillators, magnetic tracking detectors and a calorimeter, all using borrowed technology from the big LHC detectors. This results in a general-purpose detector that is sensitive to a wide variety of possible new particles.

A large component of the work in this award is the development of the data acquisition system, trigger and data analysis software needed to collect FASER’s data and dig out of this data the discovery of new particles. This very experienced team are expected to be able to discover new long-lived particles, if they are there, within a relatively short three years of data taking.

The team also will work with the California State Summer School for Mathematics & Science (COSMOS) for high school students, giving them FASER data for hands-on experience in high energy physics data analysis techniques.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.