The Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) is one of three cutting-edge liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detectors installed along the axis of the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab. Together with MicroBooNE and ICARUS, it forms the core of the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program — a coordinated experimental effort designed to search for sterile neutrino oscillations and to perform high-precision studies of neutrino–argon interactions.
SBND is positioned just 110 meters from the neutrino source, making it the near detector of the program. It features a 112-ton active mass of liquid argon and more than 100,000 readout channels, enabling sub-centimetre spatial resolution and exquisite 3D imaging of neutrino interactions. Its proximity to the BNB and large target mass result in an exceptionally high interaction rate: SBND is expected to record over 1.5 million neutrino events per year, making it one of the most statistically powerful LArTPCs ever operated.
By providing a precise characterization of the unoscillated neutrino flux and by tightly constraining flux and cross-section systematics, SBND plays a crucial role in unlocking the full oscillation sensitivity of the SBN program. In addition to its oscillation role, SBND offers discovery potential for a wide range of beyond-the-Standard-Model (BSM) phenomena, including light sterile neutrinos, millicharged particles, and non-standard interactions. The detector is now taking physics data, marking the beginning of a rich and impactful physics campaign.
The University of Liverpool is a founding member of the SBND collaboration, with several physicists playing pivotal roles in the construction, commissioning and preparation for the physics exploitation of the detector. Under the leadership of Dr. Kostas Mavrokoridis, all the TPC components were successfully delivered to Fermilab for assembly, and the Cathode Plane Array for SBND was designed and constructed exclusively at Liverpool. All components were shipped to Fermilab in 2019 and successfully installed into the TPC in 2022. Dr. David Payne, stationed at Fermilab in 2023 and 2024, contributed to the final assembly and commissioning of the SBND detector, overseeing the cosmic ray trigger—a scintillator strip detector surrounding the cryostat. Professor Costas Andreopoulos served as SBND Physics Coordinator for six years (2017–2023), as well as member of the SBND Executive Board (2020-2023), chair of the SBND Speakers Committee (2019-2022), member of the SBN Results Approval Committee (2023), and co-convenor of the SBN Systematics and Oscillation Sensitivity working group (2018-2022). Dr. Marco Roda has served as SBN Neutrino Generators convener (2018-2024), and SBND Calibration and Simulation co-Coordinator (2021-2024), while Dr. John Plows is serving as SBN Release Management and Validation co-Coordinator (2025-present). In addition, Liverpool PhD students have made significant contributions to both the detector and its physics goals.
In the physics exploitation phase, the team at Liverpool is providing advanced physics simulations through the Liverpool-led GENIE framework, and statistical analysis tools based on the Liverpool-developed VALOR toolkit. The group’s analysis efforts focus on SBND-driven constraints on flux and neutrino-argon interaction systematic uncertainties, as well as sensitive searches for sterile neutrinos.
The group’s research work on SBND is supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and several Marie Curie actions supported by the European Commission (INTENSE, PROBES, SENSE, BEYOND).
Team Leader
- Prof. Costas Andreopoulos
Academic, Research and Technical Staff
- Prof. Christos Touramanis
Dr. Kostas Mavrokoridis
Dr. David Payne
Dr. Marco Roda
Dr. John-Komninos Plows
PhD Students
- Bethany Slater
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