arXiv subjects

Felix Kling

Publications and source records attributed to Felix Kling.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

Reconstruction and Performance Evaluation of FASER's Emulsion Detector at the LHC

This paper presents the reconstruction and performance evaluation of the FASER$ν$ emulsion detector, which aims to measure interactions from neutrinos produced in the forward direction of proton-proton collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The detector, composed of tungsten plates interleaved with emulsion films, records charged particles with sub-micron precision. A key challenge arises from the extremely high track density environment, reaching $\mathcal{O}(10^5)$ tracks per cm$^2$. To address this, dedicated alignment techniques and track reconstruction algorithms have been developed, building on techniques from previous experiments and introducing further optimizations. The performance of the detector is studied by evaluating the single-film efficiency, position and angular resolution, and the impact parameter distribution of reconstructed vertices. The results demonstrate that an alignment precision of 0.3 micrometers and robust track and vertex reconstruction are achieved, enabling accurate neutrino measurements in the TeV energy range.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2025

Prospects and Opportunities with an upgraded FASER Neutrino Detector during the HL-LHC era: Input to the EPPSU

The FASER experiment at CERN has opened a new window in collider neutrino physics by detecting TeV-energy neutrinos produced in the forward direction at the LHC. Building on this success, this document outlines the scientific case and design considerations for an upgraded FASER neutrino detector to operate during LHC Run 4 and beyond. The proposed detector will significantly enhance the neutrino physics program by increasing event statistics, improving flavor identification, and enabling precision measurements of neutrino interactions at the highest man-made energies. Key objectives include measuring neutrino cross sections, probing proton structure and forward QCD dynamics, testing lepton flavor universality, and searching for beyond-the-Standard Model physics. Several detector configurations are under study, including high-granularity scintillator-based tracking calorimeters, high-precision silicon tracking layers, and advanced emulsion-based detectors for exclusive event reconstruction. These upgrades will maximize the physics potential of the HL-LHC, contribute to astroparticle physics and QCD studies, and serve as a stepping stone toward future neutrino programs at the Forward Physics Facility.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2025

The Forward Physics Facility at the Large Hadron Collider

The Forward Physics Facility (FPF) is a proposal developed to exploit the unique scientific potential made possible by the intense hadron beams produced in the far-forward direction at the high luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). Housed in a well-shielded cavern 627 m from the LHC interactions, the facility will enable a broad and deep scientific programme which will greatly extend the physics capability of the HL-LHC. Instrumented with a suite of four complementary detectors -- FLArE, FASER$ν$2, FASER2 and FORMOSA -- the FPF has unique potential to shed light on neutrino physics, QCD, astroparticle physics, and to search for dark matter and other new particles. This contribution describes some of the key scientific drivers for the facility, the engineering and technical studies that have been made in preparation for it, the design of its four complementary experiments, and the status of the project's partnerships and planning.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2025

Neutrino Electromagnetic Properties and the Weak Mixing Angle at the LHC Forward Physics Facility

The LHC produces an intense beam of highly energetic neutrinos of all three flavors in the forward direction, and the Forward Physics Facility (FPF) has been proposed to house a suite of experiments taking advantage of this opportunity. In this study, we investigate the FPF's potential to probe the neutrino electromagnetic properties, including neutrino millicharge, magnetic moment, and charge radius. We find that, due to the large flux of tau neutrinos at the LHC, the FPF detectors will be able to provide more sensitive constraints on the tau neutrino magnetic moment and millicharge than previous measurements at DONUT, by searching for excess in low recoil energy electron scattering events. We also find that, by precisely measuring the rate of neutral current deep inelastic scattering events, the FPF detectors have the potential to obtain the strongest experimental bounds on the neutrino charge radius for the electron neutrino, and one of the leading bounds for the muon neutrino flavor. The same signature could also be used to measure the weak mixing angle, and we estimate that $\sin^2 θ_W$ could be measured to about $3\%$ precision at a scale $Q \sim 10$ GeV, shedding new light on the longstanding NuTeV anomaly.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Neutrino Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider

The proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produce an intense, high-energy beam of neutrinos of all flavors, collimated in the forward direction. Recently two dedicated neutrino experiments, FASER and SND@LHC, have started operating to take advantage of the TeV energy LHC neutrino beam, with first results released in 2023 and further results released in 2024. The first detection of neutrinos produced at a particle collider opens up a new avenue of research, allowing to study the highest energy neutrinos produced in a controlled laboratory environment, with an associated broad and rich physics program. Neutrino measurements at the LHC will provide important contributions to QCD, neutrino and BSM physics, with impactful implications for astro-particle physics. This review article summarizes the physics motivation, status and plans of, present and future neutrino experiments at the LHC.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2025

Neutrino Physics at the LHC: Status and Prospects

The LHC is not only the most powerful collider built to date but also the source of an intense beam of the most energetic neutrinos ever produced by humankind. After nearly 15 years of LHC operation, these neutrinos have been observed for the first time by the FASER and SND@LHC experiments. This breakthrough marks the dawn of a new field: collider neutrino physics. Further neutrino measurements at the LHC will offer novel opportunities to advance neutrino physics, constrain the strong interaction in uncharted kinematic regimes, provide critical input for addressing outstanding questions in astroparticle physics, and search for phenomena predicted by scenarios of physics beyond the Standard Model. This proceeding reviews the existing and proposed neutrino detectors, presents their first results, and summarizes their physics potential.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Shining Light on the Dark Sector: Search for Axion-like Particles and Other New Physics in Photonic Final States with FASER

The first FASER search for a light, long-lived particle decaying into a pair of photons is reported. The search uses LHC proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13.6~\text{TeV}$ collected in 2022 and 2023, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $57.7\text{fb}^{-1}$. A model with axion-like particles (ALPs) dominantly coupled to weak gauge bosons is the primary target. Signal events are characterised by high-energy deposits in the electromagnetic calorimeter and no signal in the veto scintillators. One event is observed, compared to a background expectation of $0.44 \pm 0.39$ events, which is entirely dominated by neutrino interactions. World-leading constraints on ALPs are obtained for masses up to $300~\text{MeV}$ and couplings to the Standard Model W gauge boson, $g_{aWW}$, around $10^{-4}$ GeV$^{-1}$, testing a previously unexplored region of parameter space. Other new particle models that lead to the same experimental signature, including ALPs coupled to gluons or photons, U(1)$_B$ gauge bosons, up-philic scalars, and a Type-I two-Higgs doublet model, are also considered for interpretation, and new constraints on previously viable parameter space are presented in this paper.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2024

FPF@FCC: Neutrino, QCD, and BSM Physics Opportunities with Far-Forward Experiments at a 100 TeV Proton Collider

Proton-proton collisions at energy-frontier facilities produce an intense flux of high-energy light particles, including neutrinos, in the forward direction. At the LHC, these particles are currently being studied with the far-forward experiments FASER/FASER$ν$ and SND@LHC, while new dedicated experiments have been proposed in the context of a Forward Physics Facility (FPF) operating at the HL-LHC. Here we present a first quantitative exploration of the reach for neutrino, QCD, and BSM physics of far-forward experiments integrated within the proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) project as part of its proton-proton collision program (FCC-hh) at $\sqrt{s} \simeq 100$ TeV. We find that $10^9$ electron/muon neutrinos and $10^7$ tau neutrinos could be detected, an increase of several orders of magnitude compared to (HL-)LHC yields. We study the impact of neutrino DIS measurements at the FPF@FCC to constrain the unpolarised and spin partonic structure of the nucleon and assess their sensitivity to nuclear dynamics down to $x \sim 10^{-9}$ with neutrinos produced in proton-lead collisions. We demonstrate that the FPF@FCC could measure the neutrino charge radius for $ν_{e}$ and $ν_μ$ and reach down to five times the SM value for $ν_τ$. We fingerprint the BSM sensitivity of the FPF@FCC for a variety of models, including dark Higgs bosons, relaxion-type scenarios, quirks, and millicharged particles, finding that these experiments would be able to discover LLPs with masses as large as 50 GeV and couplings as small as $10^{-8}$, and quirks with masses up to 10 TeV. Our study highlights the remarkable opportunities made possible by integrating far-forward experiments into the FCC project, and it provides new motivation for the FPF at the HL-LHC as an essential precedent to optimize the forward physics experiments that will enable the FCC to achieve its full physics potential.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

First Measurement of the $ν_e$ and $ν_μ$ Interaction Cross Sections at the LHC with FASER's Emulsion Detector

This paper presents the first results of the study of high-energy electron and muon neutrino charged-current interactions in the FASER$ν$ emulsion/tungsten detector of the FASER experiment at the LHC. A subset of the FASER$ν$ volume, which corresponds to a target mass of 128.6~kg, was exposed to neutrinos from the LHC $pp$ collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 13.6~TeV and an integrated luminosity of 9.5 fb$^{-1}$. Applying stringent selections requiring electrons with reconstructed energy above 200~GeV, four electron neutrino interaction candidate events are observed with an expected background of $0.025^{+0.015}_{-0.010}$, leading to a statistical significance of 5.2$σ$. This is the first direct observation of electron neutrino interactions at a particle collider. Eight muon neutrino interaction candidate events are also detected, with an expected background of $0.22^{+0.09}_{-0.07}$, leading to a statistical significance of 5.7$σ$. The signal events include neutrinos with energies in the TeV range, the highest-energy electron and muon neutrinos ever detected from an artificial source. The energy-independent part of the interaction cross section per nucleon is measured over an energy range of 560--1740 GeV (520--1760 GeV) for $ν_e$ ($ν_μ$) to be $(1.2_{-0.7}^{+0.8}) \times 10^{-38}~\mathrm{cm}^{2}\,\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ ($(0.5\pm0.2) \times 10^{-38}~\mathrm{cm}^{2}\,\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$), consistent with Standard Model predictions. These are the first measurements of neutrino interaction cross sections in those energy ranges.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2024

Neutrino Rate Predictions for FASER

The Forward Search Experiment (FASER) at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has recently directly detected the first collider neutrinos. Neutrinos play an important role in all FASER analyses, either as signal or background, and it is therefore essential to understand the neutrino event rates. In this study, we update previous simulations and present prescriptions for theoretical predictions of neutrino fluxes and cross sections, together with their associated uncertainties. With these results, we discuss the potential for possible measurements that could be carried out in the coming years with the FASER neutrino data to be collected in LHC Run 3 and Run 4.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2024

Simulating Heavy Neutral Leptons with General Couplings at Collider and Fixed Target Experiments

Heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) are motivated by attempts to explain neutrino masses and dark matter. If their masses are in the MeV to several GeV range, HNLs are light enough to be copiously produced at collider and accelerator facilities, but also heavy enough to decay to visible particles on length scales that can be observed in particle detectors. Previous studies evaluating the sensitivities of experiments have often focused on simple, but not particularly well-motivated, models in which the HNL mixes with only one active neutrino flavor. In this work, we accurately simulate models for HNL masses between 100 MeV and 10 GeV and arbitrary couplings to $e$, $μ$, and $τ$ leptons. We include over 150 HNL production channels and over 100 HNL decay modes, including all of the processes that can be dominant in some region of the general parameter space. The result is HNLCalc, a user-friendly, fast, and flexible library to compute the properties of HNL models. As examples, we implement HNLCalc to extend the FORESEE package to evaluate the prospects for HNL discovery at forward LHC experiments. We present sensitivity reaches for FASER and FASER2 in five benchmark scenarios with coupling ratios $|U_e|^2 : |U_μ|^2 : |U_τ|^2$ = 1:0:0, 0:1:0, 0:0:1, 0:1:1, and 1:1:1, where the latter two have not been studied previously. Comparing these to current constraints, we identify regions of parameter space with significant discovery prospects.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Predictions for Neutrinos and New Physics from Forward Heavy Hadron Production at the LHC

Scenarios with new physics particles feebly interacting with the Standard Model sector provide compelling candidates for dark matter searches. Geared with a set of new experiments for the detection of neutrinos and long-lived particles the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has joined the hunt for these elusive states. On the theoretical side, this emerging physics program requires reliable estimates of the associated particle fluxes, in particular those arising from heavy hadron decays. In this work, we provide state-of-the-art QCD predictions for heavy hadron production including radiative corrections at next-to-leading order and using parton distribution functions including small-$x$ resummation at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We match our predictions to parton showers to provide a realistic description of hadronisation effects. We demonstrate the utility of our predictions by presenting the energy spectrum of neutrinos from charm hadron decays. Furthermore, we employ our predictions to estimate, for the first time, FASER's sensitivity to electrophilic ALPs, which are predominantly generated in beauty hadron decays.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Forward Neutrinos from Charm at Large Hadron Collider

The currently operating FASER experiment and the planned Forward Physics Facility (FPF) will detect a large number of neutrinos produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. In this work, we estimate neutrino fluxes at these detectors from charm meson decays, which will be particularly important for the $ν_e$ and $ν_τ$ channels. We make prediction using both the next-to-leading order collinear factorization and the $k_T$-factorization approaches to model the production of charm quarks as well as different schemes to model their hadronization into charm hadrons. In particular, we emphasize that a sophisticated modeling of hadronization involving beam remnants is needed for predictions at FASER and FPF due to the sensitivity to the charm hadron production at low transverse momenta and very forward rapidity. As example, we use the string fragmentation approach implemented in \texttt{Pythia~8}. While both standard fragmentation functions and \texttt{Pythia~8} are able to describe LHCb data, we find that \texttt{Pythia~8} predicts significantly higher rate of high energy neutrinos, highlighting the importance of using the correct hadronization model when making predictions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Investigating the fluxes and physics potential of LHC neutrino experiments

The initiation of a novel neutrino physics program at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the purpose-built Forward Physics Facility (FPF) proposal have motivated studies exploring the discovery potential of these searches. This requires resolving degeneracies between new predictions and uncertainties in modeling neutrino production in the forward kinematic region. The present work investigates a broad selection of existing predictions for the parent hadron spectra at FASER$ν$ and the FPF to parameterize expected correlations in the neutrino spectra produced in their decays and to determine the highest achievable precision for their observation based on Fisher information. This allows for setting constraints on various physics processes within and beyond the Standard Model, including neutrino non-standard interactions. We also illustrate how combining multiple neutrino observables could lead to experimental confirmation of the enhanced-strangeness scenario proposed to resolve the cosmic-ray muon puzzle already during the ongoing LHC Run 3.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Tuning Pythia for Forward Physics Experiments

Event generators like Pythia play an important role in physics studies at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). While they make accurate predictions in the central region, i.e. at pseudorapidities $η<5$, a disagreement between Pythia and measurements in the forward region, $η>7$, has been observed. We introduce a dedicated forward physics tune for the Pythia event generator to be used for forward physics studies at the LHC, which uses a more flexible modelling of beam remnant hadronization and is tuned to available particle spectra measured by LHCf. Furthermore, we provide an uncertainty estimate on the new tune in a data-driven way which can be used as a means of flux uncertainty for future forward physics studies. We demonstrate an application of our tune by showing the updated neutrino and dark photon spectra at the FASER experiment.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

First Direct Observation of Collider Neutrinos with FASER at the LHC

We report the first direct observation of neutrino interactions at a particle collider experiment. Neutrino candidate events are identified in a 13.6 TeV center-of-mass energy $pp$ collision data set of 35.4 fb${}^{-1}$ using the active electronic components of the FASER detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The candidates are required to have a track propagating through the entire length of the FASER detector and be consistent with a muon neutrino charged-current interaction. We infer $153^{+12}_{-13}$ neutrino interactions with a significance of 16 standard deviations above the background-only hypothesis. These events are consistent with the characteristics expected from neutrino interactions in terms of secondary particle production and spatial distribution, and they imply the observation of both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos with an incident neutrino energy of significantly above 200 GeV.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2023

Gauging the cosmic ray muon puzzle with the Forward Physics Facility

We investigate the observed muon deficit in air shower simulations when compared to ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) data. Gleaned from the observed enhancement of strangeness production in ALICE data, the associated $π\leftrightarrow K$ swap is taken as a cornerstone to resolve the muon puzzle via its corresponding impact on the shower evolution. We develop a phenomenological model in terms of the $π\leftrightarrow K$ swapping probability $F_s$. We provide a parametrization of $F_s (E^{\rm (proj)}, η)$ that can accommodate the UHECR data, where $E^{\rm (proj)}$ is the projectile energy and $η$ the pseudorapidity. We also explore a future game plan for model improvement using the colossal amount of data to be collected by LHC neutrino detectors at the Forward Physics Facility (FPF). We calculate the corresponding sensitivity to $F_s$ and show that the FPF experiments will be able to probe the model phase space.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

ALP Searches at the LHC: FASER as a Light Shining through Walls Experiment

We propose the use of FASER as a light-shining-through-walls experiment to search for axions and axion-like particles (ALPs). LHC collisions generate a high intensity and high energy photon flux in the forward direction which can oscillate into ALPs in the magnetic fields that are used to confine the beam. These ALPs then pass through about 100~m of rock before reaching the magnetic fields of FASER, where they can convert back into photons and be detected by an electromagnetic calorimeter. In the next years, FASER and its successor FASER2 at the Forward Physics Facility will be able to explore regions of the ALPs parameter space inaccessible by other laboratory-based experiments.

hep-ph↗