Over the last decade, since the discovery of finite, non-zero neutrino mass through their oscillations over the solar and atmospheric distance and energy scales— the first evidence of physics beyond the standard model — much has been learned about elusive world of neutrinos. Yet much remains to be learned. NOvA is poised to make seminal measurements of neutrino properties that will answer questions of whether neutrinos are a source for the Matter/Anti-matter asymmetry of the universe. NOvA will lead the US domestic particle physics program and poise Fermilab as the premier laboratory for neutrino investigation and precision physics.

The NOvA experiments consists of two independent detectors separated by 810km. The far detector is sited in northern Minnesota near the US/Canadian border, at Ash River, and sited 14mrad away from the primary beam axis, in what is referred to as the "off-axis" configuration. This choice of site location and baseline is what allows NOvA to perform precisions measurements of &theta₁₃ and &theta₂₃. The far detector, at a massive 15,000 tons, will be the largest liquid scintillator calorimeter/range stack ever build.

Construction of the NOvA experiment started in May of 2009 and the first set of physics data is expected from the Near Detector in late 2010. The construction of the far detector will continue in parallel to the Near Detector operation and will become fully operational in 2013 at it's a full mass of 15,000 tons (15ktons).

Virginia's role on NOvA

As the NOvA experiment enters into its full construction phase, the Virginia group finds itself responsible for all aspects of three critical components of the NOvA detector and readout systems. Prof. Dukes and Dr. Norman have been long time members of the NOvA collaboration and their efforts and insights have been instrumental in the design and evolution of many of the critical detector subsystems. It is through this deep and committed involvement that both Prof. Dukes and Dr. Norman now serve as the Level-3 managers for these vital projects, as well as holding key leadership roles in the NOvA collaboration.

Virginia's lead role in PDS

Virginia's lead role in DAQ & DCS

The Mu2e experiment is part of the broad new initiative in particle physics to establish cutting edge physics program at the intensity frontier which will give us new understanding into physics beyond the standard model, and will firmly place Fermilab as the leader in the next generation of high intensity and precision measurements.

Mu2e was received Stage-1 approval by Fermilab in November, 2008 and CD-0 approval in August of 2009. The Mu2e collaboration is currently working on detailed designs of the beamline and magnet systems, and on critical simulation and designs of the detector components to extend the scope and reach of the experiment.

Virginia's role on Mu2e
The Virginia group is involved in the electromagnetic calorimeter and the cosmic ray veto shield. Craig Dukes serves as head of the Institutional Board and was editor of the experimental proposal. Andrew Norman serves on the background task-force, and is involved the in the software and simulation efforts.

The DØ experiment has been a world leader in collider physics. DØ operates at the energy frontier, colliding a proton beam with an anti-proton beam at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV (trillion electron volts) at Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator. DØ will continue to run and collect data through at least the end of 2011. The almost six fb^{-1} of data already recorded has allowed researchers to investigate the most pressing topics in modern physics, including searches for the Higgs boson, searches for signs of Super Symmetry, observation of the top quark, discovery of new baryons with heavy quark content, and precision measurements from the decay of heavy B-mesons.

The University of Virginia High energy group in heavily involved in both the operations of the experiment and the analysis of the data sets currently collected. The research goals of the Virginia group are focused on two areas of investigation that tie in to our work on NOvA and Mu2E.

Within the B-meson systems (the class particles consisting of a quark and anti-quark pair, where one of the quarks is heavy "bottom" flavor quark) we are looking at the class of possible decays of the B_s (a bottom + strange quark state) where a dilepton state is possible. These types of decays and in particular B_s -> mu mu and B_s -> mu e allow us to probe with extreme precision for matter/anti-mater asymmetries in the CKM mixing matrix through the measurement of Flavor Changing Weak Neutral currents (FCNC) and also for Lepton Family Number Violation (LFV) at can arise naturally through contributions from super symmetry to the B_s -> mu e decay mode. In addition we are investigating a series of other related decay modes bottom-strange meson which isolate specific type of FCNC and LFV currents. The program of investigation is handled through our Rare B Physics working group, and has openings for Virginia graduate student to pursue their doctoral research.

The CP violation analysis showed no evidence of any matter-antimatter asymmetry at the 10^-4 level, a two order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity. This implies that there are probably no exotic sources of CP violation in hyperon decays. Among other results we have observed the rarest baryon decay ever, Σ → pμ μ, and find hints that it may proceed via a hitherto unknown intermediate state that some have suggested could be the sgoldstino, a supersymmetric particle, or perhaps the Higgs.

Virginia's role on HyperCP The Virginia group played a seminal role in the fabrication of the spectrometer, designing and building: the upstream wire chambers, the hadronic calorimeter, the proton hodoscope, the triggers, and all 20,000 channels of preamplifiers. All of the CP violation analyzes were done by Virginia, and indeed all of the precision measurements.