The MuOnE experiment - motivation and status

The MuOnE collaboration has proposed to measure the differential muon-electron elastic scattering cross section of 160 GeV muons produced by the CERN SPS on atomic electrons of thin target plates. From a precise measurement of the cross section for a range of small scattering angles, MuOnE plans to achieve a competitive determination of the leading hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP-LO). The HVP term dominates the uncertainty in the Standard Model theoretical prediction for the muon magnetic moment, currently experiencing considerable tension. The MuOnE determination of the HVP-LO term will be completely independent from currently established methods. A test run with a reduced setup the detector geometry has been just performed. In this talk, I will discuss the motivation, the experiment idea, and status and prospects for the final measurement.