Grant: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Research Tools and Instruments

This proposal is to support the upgrade of the Data Concentrator Cards (DCCs) for the Tokai to Kamioka (T2K) near detector Time Projection Chambers (TPCs). The T2K experiment is an experiment built to look for the spontaneous quantum mechanical appearance of electron neutrinos in a beam of muon neutrinos. The high intensity muon neutrino beam is produced at the Japan Proton Acceleration Research Complex (J-PARC), and is measured by a near detector at 280m from the production (ND280), and by a far detector, Super-Kamiokande, 295km away in the Kamioka mine. If the appearance of electron neutrinos at the far detector is observed, it could allow for the measurement of a Charge-Parity (CP) asymmetry in neutrinos. A CP asymmetry would mean that the matter and anti-matter neutrino oscillate differently, and could help explain why there is so little anti-matter observed in the universe. The near detectors are designed to provide detailed information about the neutrino interactions, as they interact in the fine grained detectors (FGDs), and are tracked in the TPCs. The TPCs provide excellent momentum measurements of the tracks, and can discriminate between muon and electron tracks. An upgrade to the TPC DCCs is needed to improve the TPC reliability and performance as the intensity of the T2K beam continues to increase.