First Measurement of the Muon Neutrino Interaction Cross Section and Flux as a Function of Energy at the LHC with FASER

Roshan Mammen Abraham¹, Xiaocong Ai², John Anders³, Claire Antel⁴, Akitaka Ariga^{5

6}, Tomoko Ariga⁷, Jeremy Atkinson⁵, Florian U Bernlochner⁸, Tobias Boeckh⁸, Jamie Boyd³, Lydia Brenner⁹, Angela Burger³, Franck Cadoux⁴, Roberto Cardella⁴, David W Casper¹, Charlotte Cavanagh¹⁰, Xin Chen¹¹, Dhruv Chouhan⁸, Andrea Coccaro¹², Stephane Débieux⁴, Monica D'Onofrio¹³, Ansh Desai¹⁴, Sergey Dmitrievsky¹⁵, Radu Dobre¹⁶, Sinead Eley¹³, Yannick Favre⁴, Deion Fellers¹⁴, Jonathan L Feng¹, Carlo Alberto Fenoglio⁴, Didier Ferrere⁴, Max Fieg¹, Wissal Filali⁸, Elena Firu¹⁶, Edward Galantay^{3

4}, Ali Garabaglu¹⁷, Stephen Gibson¹⁸, Sergio Gonzalez-Sevilla⁴, Yuri Gornushkin¹⁵, Carl Gwilliam¹³, Daiki Hayakawa⁶, Michael Holzbock³, Shih-Chieh Hsu¹⁷, Zhen Hu¹¹, Giuseppe Iacobucci⁴, Tomohiro Inada⁷, Luca Iodice⁴, Sune Jakobsen³, Hans Joos^{3

19}, Enrique Kajomovitz²⁰, Hiroaki Kawahara⁷, Alex Keyken¹⁸, Felix Kling²¹, Daniela Köck¹⁴, Pantelis Kontaxakis⁴, Umut Kose¹⁰, Rafaella Kotitsa³, Susanne Kuehn³, Thanushan Kugathasan⁴, Lorne Levinson²², Ke Li¹⁷, Jinfeng Liu¹¹, Yi Liu², Margaret S Lutz³, Jack MacDonald²³, Chiara Magliocca⁴, Toni Mäkelä¹, Lawson McCoy¹, Josh McFayden²⁴, Andrea Pizarro Medina⁴, Matteo Milanesio⁴, Théo Moretti⁴, Mitsuhiro Nakamura²⁵, Toshiyuki Nakano²⁵, Laurie Nevay³, Ken Ohashi⁵, Hidetoshi Otono⁷, Hao Pang¹¹, Lorenzo Paolozzi^{3

4}, Pawan Pawan¹³, Brian Petersen³, Titi Preda¹⁶, Markus Prim⁸, Michaela Queitsch-Maitland²⁶, Hiroki Rokujo²⁵, André Rubbia¹⁰, Jorge Sabater-Iglesias⁴, Osamu Sato²⁵, Paola Scampoli^{5

27}, Kristof Schmieden²³, Matthias Schott²³, Anna Sfyrla⁴, Davide Sgalaberna¹⁰, Mansoora Shamim³, Savannah Shively¹, Yosuke Takubo²⁸, Noshin Tarannum⁴, Ondrej Theiner⁴, Eric Torrence¹⁴, Oscar Ivan Valdes Martinez²⁶, Svetlana Vasina¹⁵, Benedikt Vormwald³, Di Wang¹¹, Yuxiao Wang¹¹, Eli Welch¹, Monika Wielers²⁹, Yue Xu¹⁷, Samuel Zahorec^{3

30}, Stefano Zambito⁴, Shunliang Zhang¹¹; FASER Collaboration

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
² School of Physics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.
³ CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland.
⁴ Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
⁵ Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Laboratory for High Energy Physics, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland.
⁶ Department of Physics, Chiba University, 1-33 Yayoi-cho Inage-ku, 263-8522 Chiba, Japan.
⁷ Kyushu University, Nishi-ku, 819-0395 Fukuoka, Japan.
⁸ Universität Bonn, Regina-Pacis-Weg 3, D-53113 Bonn, Germany.
⁹ Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁰ Institute for Particle Physics, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8093, Switzerland.
¹¹ Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
¹² INFN Sezione di Genova, Via Dodecaneso, 33-16146, Genova, Italy.
¹³ University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom.
¹⁴ University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA.
¹⁵ Affiliated with an international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN.
¹⁶ Institute of Space Science-INFLPR Subsidiary, Bucharest, Romania.
¹⁷ Department of Physics, University of Washington, PO Box 351560, Seattle, Washington 98195-1460, USA.
¹⁸ Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, United Kingdom.
¹⁹ II. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
²⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
²¹ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany.
²² Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
²³ Institut für Physik, Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
²⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, Sussex House, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RH, United Kingdom.
²⁵ Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
²⁶ University of Manchester, School of Physics and Astronomy, Schuster Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
²⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica "Ettore Pancini", Università di Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo, I-80126 Napoli, Italy.
²⁸ National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Niihama College, 7-1, Yakumo-cho Niihama, 792-0805 Ehime, Japan.
²⁹ Particle Physics Department, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Campus, Didcot OX11 0QX, United Kingdom.
³⁰ Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Prague, Czech Republic.

PMID: 40531050
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.211801

Free article

First Measurement of the Muon Neutrino Interaction Cross Section and Flux as a Function of Energy at the LHC with FASER

Roshan Mammen Abraham et al. Phys Rev Lett. 2025.

Free article

. 2025 May 30;134(21):211801.

doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.211801.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-4575, USA.
² School of Physics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.
³ CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland.
⁴ Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
⁵ Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Laboratory for High Energy Physics, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland.
⁶ Department of Physics, Chiba University, 1-33 Yayoi-cho Inage-ku, 263-8522 Chiba, Japan.
⁷ Kyushu University, Nishi-ku, 819-0395 Fukuoka, Japan.
⁸ Universität Bonn, Regina-Pacis-Weg 3, D-53113 Bonn, Germany.
⁹ Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁰ Institute for Particle Physics, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8093, Switzerland.
¹¹ Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
¹² INFN Sezione di Genova, Via Dodecaneso, 33-16146, Genova, Italy.
¹³ University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom.
¹⁴ University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA.
¹⁵ Affiliated with an international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN.
¹⁶ Institute of Space Science-INFLPR Subsidiary, Bucharest, Romania.
¹⁷ Department of Physics, University of Washington, PO Box 351560, Seattle, Washington 98195-1460, USA.
¹⁸ Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, United Kingdom.
¹⁹ II. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
²⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
²¹ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany.
²² Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
²³ Institut für Physik, Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
²⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, Sussex House, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RH, United Kingdom.
²⁵ Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
²⁶ University of Manchester, School of Physics and Astronomy, Schuster Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
²⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica "Ettore Pancini", Università di Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo, I-80126 Napoli, Italy.
²⁸ National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Niihama College, 7-1, Yakumo-cho Niihama, 792-0805 Ehime, Japan.
²⁹ Particle Physics Department, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Campus, Didcot OX11 0QX, United Kingdom.
³⁰ Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Prague, Czech Republic.

PMID: 40531050
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.211801

Abstract

This Letter presents the measurement of the energy-dependent neutrino-nucleon cross section in tungsten and the differential flux of muon neutrinos and antineutrinos. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13.6 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of (65.6±1.4) fb^{-1}. Using the active electronic components of the FASER detector, 338.1±21.0 charged current muon neutrino interaction events are identified, with backgrounds from other processes subtracted. We unfold the neutrino events into a fiducial volume corresponding to the sensitive regions of the FASER detector and interpret the results in two ways: (i) we use the expected neutrino flux to measure the cross section, and (ii) we use the predicted cross section to measure the neutrino flux. Both results are presented in six bins of neutrino energy, achieving the first differential measurement in the TeV range. The observed distributions align with standard model predictions. Using this differential data, we extract the contributions of neutrinos from pion and kaon decays.

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First Measurement of the Muon Neutrino Interaction Cross Section and Flux as a Function of Energy at the LHC with FASER

Affiliations

First Measurement of the Muon Neutrino Interaction Cross Section and Flux as a Function of Energy at the LHC with FASER

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

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