1. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 1 OPERA O scillation P roject with E mulsion-t R acking A pparatus

2. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 2 OPERA is an International Collaboration 37 INSTITUTIONS, ~160 PHYSICISTS IPNL, IRES, LAPP INR ITEP JINR, Obninsk Zagreb L’Aquila, Bari, Bologna, Napoli, Padova, Roma, Salerno, LNF, LNGS Bern Neuchatel Zurich Brussels Hamburg, Münster, Rostock Sofia Aichi, Toho Kobe, Nagoya Utsunomiya Technion Haifa METU Ankara IHEP Beijing Shandong Gyeongsang University

3. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 3 37 INSTITUTIONS, ~160 PHYSICISTS IPNL, IRES, LAPP INR ITEP JINR, Obninsk Zagreb L’Aquila, Bari, Bologna, Napoli, Padova, Roma, Salerno, LNF, LNGS Bern Neuchatel Zurich Brussels Hamburg, Münster, Rostock Sofia Aichi, Toho Kobe, Nagoya Utsunomiya Technion Haifa METU Ankara IHEP Beijing Shandong Gyeongsang University OPERA is an International Collaboration

4. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 4 Neutrinos Oscillations : Flavor change for massive Neutrinos This property of massive neutrinos has been proposed by B. Pontecorvo (1950) After 50 years of a long search with various experimental technics Solar neutrinos (i.e. GALLEX at LNGS) Atmospheric neutrinos (i.e. MACRO at LNGS) Nuclear Reactors neutrinos Accelerator neutrinos The existence of the Neutrinos Oscillations has been established

5. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 5 What is the goal of OPERA Once the oscillations established, a large international program has been set for checking all parameters of the flavor transitions: Japan ( KEK to Super-Kamiokande), US ( Fermi Lab to MINOS )  μ disappearance Europe ( CERN to Gran Sasso )  τ appearance  OPERA

6. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 6 Detection of the  appearance signal Two conflicting requirements:  Large mass  low Xsection  High granularity  signal selection  background rejection Target:1800 tons, 5 years running 30 000 neutrino interactions ~150  interactions ~15  identified < 1 event of background Toplogy selection:  Kink signature The challenge is to identify  interactions from  interactions   -- Decay “kink”  -- ~1 mm  oscillation --

7. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 7 8.3 Kg Pb Emulsion layers  1 mm ECC : target basic component Em Provides high space resolution + Lead active target mass Compact and modular structure OPERA bricks 1 ECC= 56 Pb + 57 emulsions 2 emulsion layers (44  m thick) poured on a 200  m plastic base 12.5cm 10.2cm 10 X0’s  Interaction From NUMI exposure Electron shower

8. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 8 OPERA/CNGS1 : an hybrid detector What the brick cannot do:  trigger for a neutrino interaction  muon identification and momentum/charge measurement  need for an hybrid detector supermodule 8 m Target Trackers Pb/Em. target Emulsion analysis: Vertex, decay kink e/  ID, multiple scattering, kinematics Extract selected brick Pb/Em. brick 8 cm Pb1 mm Basic “cell” Emulsion Electronic detectors: Brick findingmuon ID, charge and p Link to mu ID, Candidate event Spectrometer

9. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 9 Structure of the OPERA Experiment 31 target planes / supermodule (in total: 206336 bricks, 1766 tons)  Targets Magnetic Spectrometers Proposal: July 2000, installation at LNGS started in May 2003 First observation of CNGS beam neutrinos : August 18 th, 2006 SM1SM2

10. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 10 OPERA Super-module OPERA Trackers in pictures & numbers details of the first spectrometer 5900 m² scintillator detectors – 3050 m² Resistive Plate Chambers 8064 7m long drift tubes - ~2000 tons of Fe

11. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 11 August 2006 : first neutrinos from the CNGS detected 50 ms 10.5  s

12. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 12 Δt first extraction (ns) 50 ms Ext1 Ext2 Cosmic rays background events Zoom on the spill peaks Δt closest extraction (ns) 10  s Event selection by using GPS timing informations

13. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 13 Beam event CC event originated from material in front of the detector (BOREXINO, rocks)

14. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 14 CC event in the first magnet

15. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 15 CC event in the first target

16. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 16 Muons bundle from cosmic rays Cosmic rays event can be easily isolated using their topology Beam events: ~horizontal tracks Cosmic rays induced events: Mostly down going

17. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 17 Conclusions The CNGS beam is operating smoothly with very good quality The tracking detectors of OPERA are taking data with practically no dead time More than 300 beam correlated events have been registered with a clean time distribution The recorded events show the expected tracking performances Correlation between tracks measured in the tracking detectors and emulsions installed in the target have been observed OPERA is now preparing the next step:  observing neutrino interactions in the Emulsion Cloud Chamber bricks Next step : end of october run !!!

18. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 18 Brick production CS box Brick Emulsion films Lead boxes BAM piling/pressing section BAM wrapping section Starting now: 12 10 6 emulsions & lead plates 200 000 bricks to be produced production rate : 1000/day 10 months for filling the detector

19. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 19 Brick insertion, extraction, processing, Brick Manipulating System Emulsion developping lab Vacuum sucker vehicle

20. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 20 Event reconstruction in the brick

21. September 11th, 2006LNGS and the Neutrinos from CERN OPERA 21 The messenger of the stars is revealing great and wonderful spectacles and incite everyone to look up at these … For 50 years, by recording neutrinos from the sun, the Super-Novae, cosmic rays we improved our understanding in Astrophysics and Cosmology In addition, neutrinos gave us a present by revealing their properties: this is opening a new field of research in fondamental physics for the next 50 years which will also have profound consequences in the understanding of the Universe