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A neutrino is a fermion that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small (-ino) that it was long thought to be zero. The rest mass of the neutrino is much smaller than that of the other known elementary particles. The weak force has a very short range, the gravitational interaction is extremely weak due to the very small mass of the neutrino, and neutrinos do not participate in the electromagnetic interaction or the strong interaction. Thus, neutrinos typically pass through normal matter unimpeded and undetected.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics.
Sterile neutrinos are hypothetical particles that interact only via gravity and not via any of the other fundamental interactions of the Standard Model. The term sterile neutrino is used to distinguish them from the known, ordinary active neutrinos in the Standard Model, which carry an isospin charge of ±+1/ 2 and engage in the weak interaction. The term typically refers to neutrinos with right-handed chirality, which may be inserted into the Standard Model. Particles that possess the quantum numbers of sterile neutrinos and masses great enough such that they do not interfere with the current theory of Big Bang nucleosynthesis are often called neutral heavy leptons (NHLs) or heavy neutral leptons (HNLs).
MiniBooNE is a Cherenkov detector experiment at Fermilab designed to observe neutrino oscillations. A neutrino beam consisting primarily of muon neutrinos is directed at a detector filled with 800 tons of mineral oil and lined with 1,280 photomultiplier tubes. An excess of electron neutrino events in the detector would support the neutrino oscillation interpretation of the LSND result.
A neutrino detector is a physics apparatus which is designed to study neutrinos. Because neutrinos only weakly interact with other particles of matter, neutrino detectors must be very large to detect a significant number of neutrinos. Neutrino detectors are often built underground, to isolate the detector from cosmic rays and other background radiation. The field of neutrino astronomy is still very much in its infancy – the only confirmed extraterrestrial sources as of 2018 are the Sun and the supernova 1987A in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. Another likely source is the blazar TXS 0506+056 about 3.7 billion light years away. Neutrino observatories will "give astronomers fresh eyes with which to study the universe".
T2K is a particle physics experiment studying the oscillations of the accelerator neutrinos. The experiment is conducted in Japan by the international cooperation of about 500 physicists and engineers with over 60 research institutions from several countries from Europe, Asia and North America and it is a recognized CERN experiment (RE13). T2K collected data within its first phase of operation from 2010 till 2021. The second phase of data taking is expected to start in 2023 and last until commencement of the successor of T2K – the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment in 2027.
The NOνA experiment is a particle physics experiment designed to detect neutrinos in Fermilab's NuMI beam. Intended to be the successor to MINOS, NOνA consists of two detectors, one at Fermilab, and one in northern Minnesota. Neutrinos from NuMI pass through 810 km of Earth to reach the far detector. NOνA's main goal is to observe the oscillation of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos. The primary physics goals of NOvA are:
Nigel Stuart Lockyer is a British-American experimental particle physicist. He is the current director of the Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based ScienceS and Education (CLASSE) as of May 1, 2023. He was the Director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), in Batavia, Illinois, the leading particle physics laboratory in the United States, from September 2013 to April 2022.
SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment (SciBooNE), was a neutrino experiment located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in the USA. It observed neutrinos of the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) that are produced when protons from the Fermilab Booster-accelerator were made to hit a beryllium target; this led to the production of many short-lived particles that decayed into neutrinos. The SciBooNE detector was located some 100 meters downrange from the beryllium target, with a 50 meter decay-volume (where the particle decay into neutrinos) and absorber combined with 50 meters of solid ground between the target and the detector to absorb other particles than neutrinos. The neutrino-beam continued through SciBooNE and ground to the MiniBooNE-detector, located some 540 meters downrange from the target.
Lorentz-violating neutrino oscillation refers to the quantum phenomenon of neutrino oscillations described in a framework that allows the breakdown of Lorentz invariance. Today, neutrino oscillation or change of one type of neutrino into another is an experimentally verified fact; however, the details of the underlying theory responsible for these processes remain an open issue and an active field of study. The conventional model of neutrino oscillations assumes that neutrinos are massive, which provides a successful description of a wide variety of experiments; however, there are a few oscillation signals that cannot be accommodated within this model, which motivates the study of other descriptions. In a theory with Lorentz violation, neutrinos can oscillate with and without masses and many other novel effects described below appear. The generalization of the theory by incorporating Lorentz violation has shown to provide alternative scenarios to explain all the established experimental data through the construction of global models.
Antonio Ereditato is an Italian physicist, currently Research Professor at the University of Chicago, associate researcher at Fermilab, Batavia, USA, and Emeritus professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he has been Director of the Laboratory for High Energy Physics from 2006 to 2020. From 2021 to 2022 Ereditato has been Visiting Professor at the Yale University, USA. He carried out research activities in the field of experimental neutrino physics, of weak interactions and strong interactions with experiments conducted at CERN, in Japan, at Fermilab in United States and at the LNGS in Italy. Ereditato has accomplished several R&D studies on particle detectors: wire chambers, calorimeters, time projection chambers, nuclear emulsions, detectors for medical applications.
In 2011, the OPERA experiment mistakenly observed neutrinos appearing to travel faster than light. Even before the source of the error was discovered, the result was considered anomalous because speeds higher than that of light in vacuum are generally thought to violate special relativity, a cornerstone of the modern understanding of physics for over a century.
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a neutrino experiment under construction, with a near detector at Fermilab and a far detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility that will observe neutrinos produced at Fermilab. An intense beam of trillions of neutrinos from the production facility at Fermilab will be sent over a distance of 1,300 kilometers (810 mi) with the goal of understanding the role of neutrinos in the universe. More than 1,000 collaborators work on the project. The experiment is designed for a 20-year period of data collection.
ICARUS is a physics experiment aimed at studying neutrinos. It was located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) where it started operations in 2010. After completion of its operations there, it was refurbished at CERN for re-use at Fermilab, in the same neutrino beam as the MiniBooNE, MicroBooNE and Short Baseline Near Detector (SBND) experiments. The ICARUS detector was then taken apart for transport and reassembled at Fermilab, where data collection is expected to begin in fall 2021.
The Accelerator Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment (ANNIE) is a proposed water Cherenkov detector experiment designed to examine the nature of neutrino interactions. This experiment will study phenomena like proton decay, and neutrino oscillations, by analyzing neutrino interactions in gadolinium-loaded water and measuring their neutron yield. Neutron Tagging plays an important role in background rejection from atmospheric neutrinos. By implementing early prototypes of LAPPDs, high precision timing is possible. The suggested location for ANNIE is the SciBooNE hall on the Booster Neutrino Beam associated with the MiniBooNE experiment. The neutrino beam originates in Fermilab where The Booster delivers 8 GeV protons to a beryllium target producing secondary pions and kaons. These secondary mesons decay to produce a neutrino beam with an average energy of around 800 MeV. ANNIE will begin installation in the summer of 2015. Phase I of ANNIE, mapping the neutron background, completed in 2017. The detector is being upgraded for full science operation which is expected to begin late 2018.
The STEREO experiment investigated the possible oscillation of neutrinos from a nuclear reactor into light so-called sterile neutrinos. It was located at the Institut Laue–Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France. The experiment took data from November 2016 to November 2020. The final results of the experiment rejected the hypothesis of a light sterile neutrino.
An accelerator neutrino is a human-generated neutrino or antineutrino obtained using particle accelerators, in which beam of protons is accelerated and collided with a fixed target, producing mesons which then decay into neutrinos. Depending on the energy of the accelerated protons and whether mesons decay in flight or at rest it is possible to generate neutrinos of a different flavour, energy and angular distribution. Accelerator neutrinos are used to study neutrino interactions and neutrino oscillations taking advantage of high intensity of neutrino beams, as well as a possibility to control and understand their type and kinematic properties to a much greater extent than for neutrinos from other sources.
Jocelyn Monroe is an American British experimental particle physicist who is a professor at the University of Oxford. Her research considers the development of novel detectors as part of the search for dark matter. In 2016 she was honoured with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her work on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.
Bonnie T. Fleming is an experimental particle physicist who has held leadership roles in several physics experiments and at Fermilab. Since 2022, she has been Fermilab's chief research officer and deputy director for science and technology. She has also served on the faculty of Yale University and the University of Chicago. Fleming is an expert in neutrino physics and liquid argon time projection chamber detector technology.
Geralyn P. (Sam) Zeller is an American neutrino physicist at Fermilab. At Fermilab, she is a participant in the MiniBooNE experiment, co-spokesperson for the MicroBooNE experiment, and deputy head of the Neutrino Division.
References
- ↑ "MicroBooNE Physics". MicroBooNE website. Fermilab. Archived from the original on 2017-12-22. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ R. Acciarri, et al. (The MicroBooNE Collaboration) (February 2017). "Design and construction of the MicroBooNE detector". Journal of Instrumentation . 12 (2): P02017. arXiv: 1612.05824 . Bibcode:2017JInst..12P2017A. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/12/02/P02017. S2CID 119212111.
- ↑ "SBN | Home". sbn.fnal.gov. Retrieved 2023-01-21.
- ↑ "The short-baseline detectives and the mysterious case of the sterile neutrino". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
- ↑ "MicroBooNE sees first accelerator-born neutrinos". Symmetry. 2 November 2015. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ "Fermilab scientist Matt Toups elected new co-spokesperson of MicroBooNE". Fermilab News. 2022-03-15.
- ↑ Collaboration, MicroBooNE; Abratenko, P.; An, R.; Anthony, J.; Arellano, L.; Asaadi, J.; Ashkenazi, A.; Balasubramanian, S.; Baller, B.; Barnes, C.; Barr, G. (2022). "Search for Neutrino-Induced Neutral-Current Δ Radiative Decay in MicroBooNE and a First Test of the MiniBooNE Low Energy Excess under a Single-Photon Hypothesis". Physical Review Letters. 128 (11): 111801. arXiv: 2110.00409 . Bibcode:2022PhRvL.128k1801A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.111801. PMID 35363017. S2CID 246946928.
- ↑ "New results from MicroBooNE shine light on a long-standing anomaly in particle physics". discover.lanl.gov. Retrieved 2021-10-28.
- ↑ "Search for an Excess of Electron Neutrino Interactions in MicroBooNE Using Multiple Final State Topologies". MicroBooNE. Retrieved 2021-10-28.
- 1 2 "MicroBooNE experiment's first results show no hint of a sterile neutrino". News. 2021-10-27. Retrieved 2021-10-28.
- ↑ Worcester, Elizabeth (June 13, 2022). "Neutrino Mystery Endures". No. 15. Physics. p. 85. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
- ↑ Arguelles, C.; et, al. (2022). "MicroBooNE and the νe Interpretation of the MiniBooNE Low-Energy Excess". Physical Review Letters. 128 (24): 241802. arXiv: 2111.10359 . Bibcode:2022PhRvL.128x1802A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.241802. PMID 35776462. S2CID 249653353.