A Beamdump Facility at Jefferson Lab
Patrick Achenbach, Andrei Afanasev, Pawel Ambrozewicz, Adi Ashkenazi, Dipanwita Banerjee, Marco Battaglieri, Jay Benesch, Mariangela Bondi, Paul Brindza, Alexandre Camsonne, Eric M. Christy, Ethan W. Cline, Chris Cuevas, Jens Dilling, Luca Doria, Stuart Fegan, Marco Filippini, Antonino Fulci, Simona Giovannella, Stefano Grazzi, Heather Jackson, Douglas Higinbotham, Cynthia Keppel, Vladimir Khachatryan, Michael Kohl, Hanjie Liu, Zhen Liu, Camillo Mariani, Ralph Marinaro, Kevin McFarland, Claudio Montanari, Vishvas Pandey, Eduard Pozdeyev, Jianwei Qiu, Patrizia Rossi, Riccardo Rossini, Todd Satogata, Glenn Schrader, Adrian Signer, Daniel Snowden-Ifft, Marco Spreafico, Diktys Stratakis, Manjukrishna Suresh, Holly Szumila, Julia Tena Vidal, Davide Terzania, Charlie Velasquez, Michael Wood, Takayuki Yamazaki, Yuhong Zhang
TL;DR
The paper investigates expanding Jefferson Lab's physics program by enabling intense secondary beams—muons, neutrinos, and potentially light dark matter—from electron-beam dumps. It argues that the underground vault planned for the Beam Dump eXperiment (BDX) can host a Beamdump Facility, enabling high-impact muon and neutrino programs alongside LDM searches, as reinforced by the BDX & Beyond workshop. The muon program offers 100 MeV–GeV beams with GeV-scale polarization for precision QED tests, nucleon structure studies, BSM muon–electron scattering, and R&D for muon-collider components; the neutrino program centers on decay-at-rest spectra, CEvNS measurements, and input for DUNE. Synergies, phased deployment, and funding opportunities are highlighted to position Jefferson Lab as a leading intensity-frontier hub with broad cross-disciplinary impact.
Abstract
This White Paper is exploring the potential of intense secondary muon, neutrino, and (hypothetical) light dark matter beams produced in interactions of high-intensity electron beams with beam dumps. Light dark matter searches with the approved Beam Dump eXperiment (BDX) are driving the realization of a new underground vault at Jefferson Lab that could be extended to a Beamdump Facility with minimal additional installations. The paper summarizes contributions and discussions from the International Workshop on Secondary Beams at Jefferson Lab (BDX & Beyond). Several possible muon physics applications and neutrino detector technologies for Jefferson Lab are highlighted. The potential of a secondary neutron beam will be addressed in a future edition.