Overview of the COMET Phase-I experiment

Charged Lepton Flavour Violation (CLFV) has yet to be observed experimentally. If observed, it would be a clear signal of new physics. One of the ways of observing this phenomena is via the neutrino-less conversion of muons to electrons bound to an atomic 1s ground state, µ−N →e−N with the COMET experiment. This experiment is designed to look for 104.8 MeV electrons converted from muons with a sensitivity a factor of 10000 better than that of current experimental limit [2]. From the J-PARC Main Ring, a dedicated 8GeV proton beam will be extracted into the J-PARC hadron hall. Upon its completion, COMET will use the world’s most intense muon beam of the order of 1016 over 110 days capable of an experimental single-event sensitivity of 3 ×10−17 or better. COMET Phase-I, will be using the Cylindrical Drift Chamber (CDC) as it is designed to avoid the high-radiation and high-hit rate due to the muon beam, muon decay-in-orbit (DIO) background events and low energy protons emitted by the muon nuclear capture process. Estimated backgrounds of the order of 0.02 events are sufficiently small for COMET Phase-I sensitivity of 10−15. The COMET collaboration has been advancing areas critical to the eventual deployment of the Phase-I since the beginning of 2011 with studies being done in muon yield simulations, trigger studies, data acquisition and so on.