TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Status of the NOvA Experiment Robert Plunkett Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Batavia, IL, USA TAUP 2007 Topics on Underground and Astroparticle Physics 14 September 2007

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 The NOvA Collaboration 25 Institutions, 129 Physicists and Engineers Argonne, Athens, Caltech, College de France, Fermilab, Harvard, Indiana, ITEP- Moscow, Michigan State, Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth, Munich, Northern Illinois, Ohio State, Rio de Janeiro, South Carolina, Southern Methodist University, Stanford, Stonybrook, Texas, Texas A&M, Tufts, UCLA, Virginia, William and Mary

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Located 30 km south of Canada Improved road access planned 810 km baseline 14.6 mrad off-axis Ash River Site for NOvA

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 NuMI Tunnels and Facility p beam Pion beam 250 m NuMI Components in Main Injector NuMI Pretarget Area

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Existing NuMI Neutrino Beam 207m 120 GeV protons strike the graphite target Nominal Intensity 2.4x10 13 ppp with ~2 sec cycle time. Initial intensity ~2.5 x protons/year Ultimate intensity ~ 3.4 x protons/year (2008-9) Horn and Stripline

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Upgrades to NuMI for NOvA Reconfigure horns for higher energy optimum. Increase beam power by use of Recycler (1.3 s cycling). New target system for higher intensity NOvA beam choice

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Expected evolution of proton intensity Achieved! Expected after current shutdown Requires use of recycler storage ring after Tevatron shutdown Possible upgrade path

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Graphical Representation of Off- Axis Beam Length of this vector very insensitve to pion  At ~  /2  P T  0 as vary  * Flux peaks in desired region

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Off-axis provides improved background levels NC at low energy because no high energy tail Beam e are spread out over a wide range - remove by windowing Backgrounds show a different energy spectrum and can be removed during analysis

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Far - 18 kT reference design, 12 x 12 modules, 1178 layers Near T, 2 x 3 modules, 199 layers, muon ranger at end Integration-prototype Near - 88 T, 2 x 3 modules, 124 layers, start in 2008 Three NOvA Detectors

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 NOvA Building a considerable structure 19 m 107 m Pulsed beam allows surface construction. Overburden of 1.2m concrete, and 30 cm Barite reduces C.R. backgrounds (especially  to low levels Block assembly area

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Construction in Subsections for Structural Stability 31-plane block 1-cm expan- sion gap 31-plane block Block pivoter raises 127 Ton blocks Each block has ~6000 channels Filling proceeds as blocks constructed Detailed mechanical analysis for stability against bulge, creep.

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Extruded PVC tubes filled with liquid scintillator ~ 16 m Prototype with full-length fiber Readout cosmic muons

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Constructed from modular extrusions Liquid scintillator (14.8M liters, 12.6 ktons) Contained in 3.9 x 6.6 cell cells of length 15.7 m 18 m attenuation length 5.5% pseudocumene Extruded PVC (5.4 ktons) 15% anatase TiO2 for high reflectivity Wavelength shifting fiber (18k km) 0.7 mm diameter Looped, both ends to same readout pixel

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Extrusion Structure and Initial Production 16 Cell extrusions – ready for further assembly 15.8 m in length is long.

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 NOvA HPD Detector Electronics QE ~85%, gain ~100 QE well-matched to fiber spectrum Cooled by thermoelectric cooler to -15 C Untriggered continuous digitization APD on prototype carrier board Emission Spectra and Q.E. Water cooling for TEC’s

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 MINOS underground area allows a Near Detector target volume veto shower containment muon ranger 218 tons total / 20 tons fiducial At low  13, reducing uncertainty on background at far detector can increase sensitivity by even more than additional exposure

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Electron Identification for NOvA >20 variables in Neural Net Examples shown – other variables study charge-range distributions Overall efficiency ~30% (optimizable) Neural Net Output signal bkg. NC  CC beam e

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Event Reconstruction – tuning for maximum sensitivity All backgrounds NC background ν μ CC background ‣ “Primary cuts” = reconstruction, containment, and number of hits ‣ ANN is 39.3% Efficient for events passing primary cuts. Note that here, sin 2 2  13 = 0.1, w/o matter effects

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Muon Neutrino CC Display

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Electron Neutrino CC Event

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Excellent Sensitivity to e Appearance 3  sensitivity for non-zero  13 NOvA gives order of magnitude improvement (compared to CHOOZ 90%) for most values of CP- .

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 NovA studies the neutrino mass hierarchy using matter effects Appearance Probs. Typical values for L=810 km, sin 2 2  13 = 0.05 anti- Normal hierarchy In these regions, and anti- rates are difficult to distinguish. Inverted hierarchy anti-  CP phase (0-2  )

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Sensitivity to Mass Hierarchy 95% C.L. Normal Inverted Intercept with T2K curve resolves ambiguity Together, may also have implications for CP-violation

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Sensitivity to CP violation using 1.2 MW NOvA gives clues as to future direction of neutrino program. Will ultra-precise neutrino sources be needed?

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Precision Measurement of  m 2 23,sin 2 2  23 6 years at 700 kW 6 years at 1.2 MW For comparison, current situation (note scale)

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September, % C.L. Resolution of θ 23 Ambiguity If sin 2 (2θ 23 )≠1 then: θ 23 >π/4 => e couples more to ν μ θ 23 e couples more to ν τ NOvA combined with a precise reactor experiment (eg. Daya Bay) can resolve this ambiguity

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Provisional Project Schedule Building construction Accelerator shutdown: Injection lines and ND excavation NuMI switch to ME configuration Start of FD operation

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 Summary and Conclusions Extensive technical and approval progress for NOvA project –Incorporated accelerator upgrade to 700 kW –Finalizing structural design –Successful extrusions –DOE CD1 approval Nova experiment next step in use of NuMI beamline and its upgrades. –Mixing strength, mass hierarchy, direction to pursue for CP violation Highly complementary to T2K experiment –Combination of results will define field. On track for first detector (IPND) start in IPND extrusions at manufacturer

TAUP 2007 R. Plunkett 14 September,2007 And now, special feelings for Sendai... Nature is speaking. Sky, earth, beams of neutrinos; Will we see the way?