Sterile neutrino search at the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Program

The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) will be one of three liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detectors positioned along the axis of the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab, as part of the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program. The detector is currently in the construction phase and is anticipated to begin operation in the second half of 2022. SBND is characterised by superb imaging capabilities and will record over a million neutrino interactions per year. Thanks to its unique combination of measurement resolution and statistics, SBND will carry out a rich program of neutrino interaction measurements and novel searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). It will enable the potential of the overall SBN sterile neutrino program by performing a precise characterisation of the unoscillated event rate, and by constraining BNB flux and neutrino-Argon cross-section systematic uncertainties.

The goal of this project is to perform, within the VALOR analysis framework, a joint analysis of several key exclusive final state samples recorded on SBND. The purpose of this effort is to i) improve the phenomenology of neutrino interactions in the GENIE simulation used by SBN, ii) produce stringent SBND-driven constraints of flux and cross-section systematic uncertainties, and iii) improve the estimates of the unoscillated event rates at ICARUS, the far detector of the SBN program. The aim of this project is to enable the oscillation sensitivity of the full SBN program that, for the definitive 5a exclusion the hypothesis of light sterile neutrinos with the parameters suggested by the LSND/MiniBooNE anomaly, rests upon the ability to constrain at 1% level all the systematics that are uncorrelated between SBND and ICARUS. A parallel objective of this project is to contribute to the development of exclusive final state selections on SBND, with particular emphasis on single-pion production.