SHiP Experiment

SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) is a new general-purpose experiment that has been proposed for construction at CERN. It will search for hidden particles as predicted by a large number of Hidden Sectors models, which are capable of accommodating dark matter, neutrino oscillations, and the origin of the full baryon asymmetry in the Universe. SHiP will aim to explain these and other important phenomena not described by the Standard Model by searching for very feebly interacting particles in the GeV mass scale, rather than by direct searches in the TeV mass scale, and is therefore complementary to current LHC experiments

The Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) experiment has been proposed for  construction at the Beam Dump Facility at CERN SPS, starting 2025. SHiP is aimed at searching for very weakly interacting long lived particles, which have been proposed by several theories beyond the Standard Model. It will look heavy neutral leptons, photons and dark PNGB produced in the decays of D mesons.

SHiP is a fixed target experiment composed of two complementary detector systems placed behind a shielding system that suppresses most Standard Model particles.

The first is the Scattering and Neutrino detector, based on Tungsten-emulsion bricks and scintillating fiber, dedicated to the study of τ neutrinos and the search for Light Dark Matter interactions. This is followed by a 50m long vacuum decay volume surrounded by liquid scintillator. The final part of the vacuum vessel holds the spectrometer tracker. Downstream of the vessel are a timing detector, a 'SplitCal‘ calorimeter, with improved photon directionality and electron/hadron separation performance and a fast muon detector.

The combination of active and passive shielding, accurate tracking and extensive set of background tagging systems is expected to make SHiP a zero-background experiment with unprecedented sensitivity.

The SHiP collaboration is composed by over 300 scientists from across the world. The SHiP group in Bologna is responsible for the design, simulation, construction and characterization of the downstream muon detector, based on fast plastic scintillator tiles with Silicon Photomultiplier readout.

We can propose thesis topics for Masters and PhD students tailored to individual preference, choosing from simulation and prototyping of detector elements, readout electronics design, test-beams and data analysis.

DIFA staff members

Valentina Cicero

Teaching tutor

Tiziano Rovelli

Associate Professor

INFN Staff members

  • Marco Dallavalle

  • Fabrizio Fabbri

  • Alessandro Montanari

  • Nicolò Tosi

Photo gallery

SHiP project

Prototypes of plastic scintillator tiles for the SHiP muon detector

Work in progress

People at SHiP