Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) are hypothetical particles predicted by many extensions of the Standard Model. These particles can, among other things, explain the origin of neutrino masses, generate the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe and provide a dark matter candidate. The SHiP experiment will be able to search for HNLs produced in decays of heavy mesons and travelling distances ranging between O(50 m) and tens of kilometers before decaying. We present the sensitivity of the SHiP experiment to a number of HNL's benchmark models and provide a way to calculate the SHiP's sensitivity to HNLs for arbitrary patterns of flavour mixings. The corresponding tools and data files are also made publicly available.

The Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) Collaboration has shown that the CERN SPS accelerator with its 400 GeV/c proton beam offers a unique opportunity to explore the Hidden Sector [1–3]. The proposed experiment is an intensity frontier experiment which is capable of searching for hidden particles through both visible decays and through scattering signatures from recoil of electrons or nuclei. The high-intensity experimental facility developed by the SHiP Collaboration is based on a number of key features and developments which provide the possibility of probing a large part of the parameter space for a wide range of models with light long-lived super-weakly interacting particles with masses up to 𝒪(10) GeV/c2 in an environment of extremely clean background conditions. This paper describes the proposal for the experimental facility together with the most important feasibility studies. The paper focuses on the challenging new ideas behind the beam extraction and beam delivery, the proton beam dump, and the suppression of beam-induced background.

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The results of investigations of the dissociation of a 14 N nucleus of momentum 2.86 A GeV/c in photo-emulsion are presented. The main characteristics of these reactions, that is the cross sections for various fragmentation channels, are given. The fragmentation was analyzed by means of an invariant approach. The momentum and correlation characteristics of α particles for the 14 N→3α+X channel in the laboratory system and the rest systems of 3α particles were considered.The results obtained for the 14 N nucleus are compared with similar data for the 12 C and 16 O nuclei.