FNS grant for Nikhef researcher Juan Rojo to study the feeblest particles in the universe

7 October 2024
The Swiss National Research Council (FNS) has awarded a CHF1.250M grant to a team composed by Prof. Dr. Anna Sfyrla (Universite de Geneve) and Nikhef researcher Prof. Dr. Juan Rojo (VU Amsterdam) to fingerprint neutrinos and feebly interacting particles with the FASER experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Complementing the program of larger LHC experiments such as ATLAS and CMS, FASER explores the new physics landscape by seeking to detect feebly interacting particles (FIPs). It also aims to scrutinize the production mechanisms and interactions of high-energy (TeV-scale) neutrinos utilizing the specialized FASERν detector during Run-3 in a kinematic region uncovered by other experiments.

In this project, starting in June 2025, the team lead by Sfyrla and Rojo will exploit the unprecedented scientific potential of the FASER experiment for:

– the searches for new particles in final states involving both charged particles and photons;
– expanding on neutrino measurements with the electronic FASER detector;
– developing new Monte Carlo event generators tailored to the physics of TeV neutrinos, and constraining proton structure;
– forwarding hadron production, and small-x QCD phenomena by combining the resultant Run-3 neutrino measurements within a global theory analysis.

More about FASER

FASER, or the Forward Search Experiment, is designed to search for light and extremely weakly interacting particles. The existence of such new particles is predicted by many models beyond the Standard Model that attempt to solve some of the biggest puzzles in physics, such as the nature of dark matter, the origin of neutrino masses, and the imbalance between matter and antimatter in the present-day universe.