Measurement of the muon flux at the SND@LHC experiment

R. Albanese; A. Alexandrov; F. Alicante; A. Anokhina; T. Asada; C. Battilana; A. Bay; C. Betancourt; D. Bick; R. Biswas; A. Blanco Castro; V. Boccia; M. Bogomilov; D. Bonacorsi; W. M. Bonivento; P. Bordalo; A. Boyarsky; S. Buontempo; M. Campanelli; T. Camporesi; V. Canale; A. Castro; D. Centanni; F. Cerutti; M. Chernyavskiy; K. -Y. Choi; S. Cholak; F. Cindolo; M. Climescu; A. P. Conaboy; G. M. Dallavalle; D. Davino; P. T. de Bryas; G. De Lellis; M. De Magistris; A. De Roeck; A. De Rújula; M. De Serio; D. De Simone; A. Di Crescenzo; R. Donà; O. Durhan; F. Fabbri; F. Fedotovs; M. Ferrillo; M. Ferro-Luzzi; R. A. Fini; A. Fiorillo; R. Fresa; W. Funk; F. M. Garay Walls; A. Golovatiuk; A. Golutvin; E. Graverini; A. M. Guler; V. Guliaeva; G. J. Haefeli; C. Hagner; J. C. Helo Herrera; E. van Herwijnen; P. Iengo; S. Ilieva; A. Infantino; A. Iuliano; R. Jacobsson; C. Kamiscioglu; A. M. Kauniskangas; E. Khalikov; S. H. Kim; Y. G. Kim; G. Klioutchnikov; M. Komatsu; N. Konovalova; S. Kuleshov; H. M. Lacker; O. Lantwin; F. Lasagni Manghi; A. Lauria; K. Y. Lee; K. S. Lee; S. Lo Meo; V. P. Loschiavo; S. Marcellini; A. Margiotta; A. Mascellani; A. Miano; A. Mikulenko; M. C. Montesi; F. L. Navarria; S. Ogawa; N. Okateva; M. Ovchynnikov; G. Paggi; B. D. Park; A. Pastore; A. Perrotta; D. Podgrudkov; N. Polukhina; A. Prota; A. Quercia; S. Ramos; A. Reghunath; T. Roganova; F. Ronchetti; T. Rovelli; O. Ruchayskiy; T. Ruf; M. Sabate Gilarte; Z. Sadykov; M. Samoilov; V. Scalera; W. Schmidt-Parzefall; O. Schneider; G. Sekhniaidze; N. Serra; M. Shaposhnikov; V. Shevchenko; T. Shchedrina; L. Shchutska; H. Shibuya; S. Simone; G. P. Siroli; G. Sirri; G. Soares; J. Y. Sohn; O. J. Soto Sandoval; M. Spurio; N. Starkov; I. Timiryasov; V. Tioukov; F. Tramontano; C. Trippl; E. Ursov; A. Ustyuzhanin; G. Vankova-Kirilova; V. Verguilov; N. Viegas Guerreiro Leonardo; C. Vilela; C. Visone; R. Wanke; E. Yaman; C. Yazici; C. S. Yoon; E. Zaffaroni; J. Zamora Saa

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-12380-3

2023 Impact factor 4.2

Particles and Fields

Open Access

Eur. Phys. J. C (2024) 84: 90
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-12380-3

Regular Article – Experimental Physics

Measurement of the muon flux at the SND@LHC experiment

R. Albanese¹^,2, A. Alexandrov¹, F. Alicante¹^,2, A. Anokhina³, T. Asada¹^,2, C. Battilana⁴^,5, A. Bay⁶, C. Betancourt⁷, D. Bick⁸, R. Biswas⁹, A. Blanco Castro¹⁰, V. Boccia¹^,2, M. Bogomilov¹¹, D. Bonacorsi⁴^,5, W. M. Bonivento¹², P. Bordalo¹⁰, A. Boyarsky¹³^,14, S. Buontempo¹, M. Campanelli¹⁵, T. Camporesi⁹, V. Canale¹^,2, A. Castro⁴^,5, D. Centanni¹^,16, F. Cerutti⁹, M. Chernyavskiy³, K. -Y. Choi¹⁷, S. Cholak⁶, F. Cindolo⁴, M. Climescu¹⁸, A. P. Conaboy¹⁹, G. M. Dallavalle⁴, D. Davino¹^,20, P. T. de Bryas⁶, G. De Lellis¹^,2, M. De Magistris¹^,16, A. De Roeck⁹, A. De Rújula⁹, M. De Serio²¹^,22, D. De Simone⁷, A. Di Crescenzo¹^,2, R. Donà⁴^,5, O. Durhan²³, F. Fabbri⁴, F. Fedotovs¹⁵, M. Ferrillo⁷, M. Ferro-Luzzi⁹, R. A. Fini²¹, A. Fiorillo¹^,2, R. Fresa¹^,24, W. Funk⁹, F. M. Garay Walls²⁵, A. Golovatiuk¹^,2, A. Golutvin²⁶, E. Graverini⁶, A. M. Guler²³, V. Guliaeva³, G. J. Haefeli⁶, C. Hagner⁸, J. C. Helo Herrera²⁷^,38, E. van Herwijnen²⁶, P. Iengo¹, S. Ilieva¹^,2^,11^bs, A. Infantino⁹, A. Iuliano¹^,2, R. Jacobsson⁹, C. Kamiscioglu²³^,28, A. M. Kauniskangas⁶, E. Khalikov³, S. H. Kim²⁹, Y. G. Kim³⁰, G. Klioutchnikov⁹, M. Komatsu³¹, N. Konovalova³, S. Kuleshov²⁷^,32, H. M. Lacker¹⁹, O. Lantwin¹, F. Lasagni Manghi⁴, A. Lauria¹^,2, K. Y. Lee²⁹, K. S. Lee³³, S. Lo Meo⁴, V. P. Loschiavo¹^,20, S. Marcellini⁴, A. Margiotta⁴^,5, A. Mascellani⁶, A. Miano¹^,2, A. Mikulenko¹³, M. C. Montesi¹^,2, F. L. Navarria⁴^,5, S. Ogawa³⁴, N. Okateva³, M. Ovchynnikov¹³, G. Paggi⁴^,5, B. D. Park²⁹, A. Pastore²¹, A. Perrotta⁴, D. Podgrudkov³, N. Polukhina³, A. Prota¹^,2, A. Quercia¹^,2, S. Ramos¹⁰, A. Reghunath¹⁹, T. Roganova³, F. Ronchetti⁶, T. Rovelli⁴^,5, O. Ruchayskiy³⁵, T. Ruf⁹, M. Sabate Gilarte⁹, Z. Sadykov¹, M. Samoilov³, V. Scalera¹^,16, W. Schmidt-Parzefall⁸, O. Schneider⁶, G. Sekhniaidze¹, N. Serra⁷, M. Shaposhnikov⁶, V. Shevchenko³, T. Shchedrina³, L. Shchutska⁶, H. Shibuya³⁴^,36, S. Simone²¹^,22, G. P. Siroli⁴^,5, G. Sirri⁴, G. Soares¹⁰, J. Y. Sohn²⁹, O. J. Soto Sandoval²⁷^,38, M. Spurio⁴^,5, N. Starkov³, I. Timiryasov³⁵, V. Tioukov¹, F. Tramontano¹^,2, C. Trippl⁶, E. Ursov³, A. Ustyuzhanin¹^,37, G. Vankova-Kirilova¹¹, V. Verguilov¹¹, N. Viegas Guerreiro Leonardo¹⁰, C. Vilela¹⁰, C. Visone¹^,2, R. Wanke¹⁸, E. Yaman²³, C. Yazici²³, C. S. Yoon²⁹, E. Zaffaroni⁶ and J. Zamora Saa²⁷^,32

¹ Sezione INFN di Napoli, 80126, Naples, Italy
² Università di Napoli “Federico II”, 80126, Naples, Italy
³ Affiliated with an Institute Covered by a Cooperation Agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
⁴ Sezione INFN di Bologna, 40127, Bologna, Italy
⁵ Università di Bologna, 40127, Bologna, Italy
⁶ Institute of Physics, EPFL, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland
⁷ Physik-Institut, UZH, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland
⁸ Hamburg University, 22761, Hamburg, Germany
⁹ European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), 1211, Geneva, Switzerland
¹⁰ Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP), 1649-003, Lisbon, Portugal
¹¹ Faculty of Physics, Sofia University, 1164, Sofia, Bulgaria
¹² Università degli Studi di Cagliari, 09124, Cagliari, Italy
¹³ University of Leiden, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands
¹⁴ Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, 01033, Kyiv, Ukraine
¹⁵ University College London, WC1E6BT, London, UK
¹⁶ Università di Napoli Parthenope, 80143, Naples, Italy
¹⁷ Sungkyunkwan University, 16419, Suwon-si, Korea
¹⁸ Institut für Physik and PRISMA Cluster of Excellence, 55099, Mainz, Germany
¹⁹ Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
²⁰ Università del Sannio, 82100, Benevento, Italy
²¹ Sezione INFN di Bari, 70126, Bari, Italy
²² Università di Bari, 70126, Bari, Italy
²³ Middle East Technical University (METU), 06800, Ankara, Turkey
²⁴ Università della Basilicata, 85100, Potenza, Italy
²⁵ Departamento de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 4860, Santiago, Chile
²⁶ Imperial College London, SW72AZ, London, UK
²⁷ Millennium Institute for Subatomic physics at high energy frontier-SAPHIR, 7591538, Santiago, Chile
²⁸ Ankara University, 06100, Ankara, Turkey
²⁹ Department of Physics Education and RINS, Gyeongsang National University, 52828, Jinju, Korea
³⁰ Gwangju National University of Education, 61204, Gwangju, Korea
³¹ Nagoya University, 464-8602, Nagoya, Japan
³² Center for Theoretical and Experimental Particle Physics, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Andrès Bello, Fernandez Concha 700, Santiago, Chile
³³ Korea University, 02841, Seoul, Korea
³⁴ Toho University, 274-8510, Chiba, Japan
³⁵ Niels Bohr Institute, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
³⁶ Faculty of Engineering, 221-0802, Kanagawa, Japan
³⁷ Constructor University, 28759, Bremen, Germany
³⁸ Departamento de Fisica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Serena, 1200, La Serena, Chile

^bs simona.ilieva.ilieva@cern.ch

Received: 10 October 2023
Accepted: 23 December 2023
Published online: 27 January 2024

Abstract

The Scattering and Neutrino Detector at the LHC (SND@LHC) started taking data at the beginning of Run 3 of the LHC. The experiment is designed to perform measurements with neutrinos produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC in an energy range between 100 GeV and 1 TeV. It covers a previously unexplored pseudo-rapidity range of $7.2 < η < 8.4$ $7.2<\eta <8.4$ . The detector is located 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point in the TI18 tunnel. It comprises a veto system, a target consisting of tungsten plates interleaved with nuclear emulsion and scintillating fiber (SciFi) trackers, followed by a muon detector (UpStream, US and DownStream, DS). In this article we report the measurement of the muon flux in three subdetectors: the emulsion, the SciFi trackers and the DownStream Muon detector. The muon flux per integrated luminosity through an 18 $\times$ $\times$ 18 cm $^{2}$ $^{2}$ area in the emulsion is: $\begin{matrix} 1.5 \pm 0.1 (stat) \times 10^{4} {fb/cm}^{2} . \end{matrix}$ $\begin{aligned} 1.5 \pm 0.1(\text {stat}) \times 10^4\,\text {fb/cm}^{2}. \end{aligned}$ The muon flux per integrated luminosity through a 31 $\times$ $\times$ 31 cm $^{2}$ $^{2}$ area in the centre of the SciFi is: $\begin{matrix} 2.06 \pm 0.01 (stat) \pm 0.12 (sys) \times 10^{4} {fb/cm}^{2} \end{matrix}$ $\begin{aligned} 2.06\pm 0.01(\text {stat})\pm 0.12(\text {sys}) \times 10^{4} \text {fb/cm}^{2} \end{aligned}$ The muon flux per integrated luminosity through a 52 $\times$ $\times$ 52 cm $^{2}$ $^{2}$ area in the centre of the downstream muon system is: $\begin{matrix} 2.35 \pm 0.01 (stat) \pm 0.10 (sys) \times 10^{4} {fb/cm}^{2} \end{matrix}$ $\begin{aligned} 2.35\pm 0.01(\text {stat})\pm 0.10(\text {sys}) \times 10^{4}\,\text {fb/cm}^{2} \end{aligned}$ The total relative uncertainty of the measurements by the electronic detectors is 6 $%$ $\%$ for the SciFi and 4 $%$ $\%$ for the DS measurement. The Monte Carlo simulation prediction of these fluxes is 20–25 $%$ $\%$ lower than the measured values.

© The Author(s) 2024

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.