The Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab

Note: https://bostonu.zoom.us/j/461622209
Speaker: Sean Foster, Boston University, Physics Department

When: April 15, 2020 (Wed), 10:00AM to 11:00AM (add to my calendar)

This event is part of the Preliminary Oral Exam.

Since the completion of the Muon g-2 experiment at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) in the early 2000s, there has been a persistent tension of 3-4 sigma between the experimental and Standard Model (SM) values of the muon magnetic anomaly. An exciting possibility is that this tension could be a hint of physics beyond the SM. In an attempt to resolve or confirm this tension, the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab, which has been collecting data since 2018 and is currently in Run 3 of data collection, has set out to improve the precision of the BNL result from 540 ppb (parts-per-billion) to 140 ppb, a four-fold improvement requiring twenty times the statistics. With this improved precision, if the experimentally-determined central value remains the same, the tension would become greater than 7 sigma, a strong indication of new physics. With this ambitious goal, the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab is set to find out if this hint of physics beyond the SM persists or not.

In this preliminary oral exam, I will motivate doing a measurement of the muon magnetic anomaly and describe the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab. I will then describe my work, which has been designing a scattering target for the tracking detectors. I will describe what the tracking detectors do and how the scattering target will help assess systematics such as alignment that affect the tracker’s reconstruction. I will present a proof-of-concept of the target through simulation work, outline the important design considerations, and demonstrate the target’s capabilities. The plan is to build the target this summer in the Scientific Instrumentation Facility at BU and implement it at the start of Run 4 in the Fall of this year.

I will conclude my talk with an outlook of my planned thesis work in which I will perform an anomalous precession frequency analysis on the Run 2 and Run 3 data sets. I will describe the method that I will use, known as the Ratio method, and the improvements I plan to make. I will demonstrate this plan by showing some Monte Carlo studies as well as a look at data from Run 1.

https://bostonu.zoom.us/j/461622209

Meeting ID: 461 622 209 Password: See Email

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