The SHiP Experiment: the Problem of Multidimensional Muon Shielding Optimization

SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) is a new general purpose experiment on the SPS ring at CERN, which aims to search for hidden particles proposed by numerous theories beyond the Standard Model, potentially explaining dark matter, neutrino oscillations, and baryon asymmetry of the universe. SHiP is declared as a zero background experiment. The key element to achieve this is the muon shielding. On the one hand, it should provide good background suppression, and on the other hand, it should not be too heavy. This paper presents the results of obtaining muon shielding configurations using Bayesian optimization. This made it possible to reduce the background level by 2.5 times while maintaining the mass of shielding at the same level.