Groups in the Oxford Physics Department are working on several different experiments in neutrino physics. This is a list of some of the ones we are working on or have completed.
MINOS [Data taking]
The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search. MINOS is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment with neutrinos produced at Fermilab near Chicago in the USA and detected as they emerge from the Earth in Soudan, Minnesota, which is close to the US/Canadian border. The experiment has been accumulating beam data since 2005.
Some of the most exciting physics to emerge over the last decade has been in the field of neutrino physics. One of the forefront experiments here has been the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), based in Canada. The SNO group at Oxford have played a leading role in solving the "Solar Neutrino Problem" and clearly demonstrating, for the first time, that neutrinos exists as mixed states which allow them to apparently "oscillate" from one type to another. SNO stopped taking data in November 2006, though further analysis will continue for a couple more years. However, on the heels of this tremendously successful project, a follow-on experiment is being pursued with a very diverse and interesting range of physics objectives. SNO+ will use a modified version of the instrument to measure other fundamental solar neutrino processes, study neutrinos generated from within the earth, act as an excellent detector for neutrinos from galactic supernovae and search for a very rare process called "neutrinoless double beta decay." An observation of the latter process would both permit a determination of the absolute neutrino masses and would establish that neutrinos and antineutrinos are only distinguished by the directionof their spin, which could have consequences for our understanding of the matter/antimatter asymmetry in the universe. This area of study is considered to be of extremely high importance in particle physics and would constitute the first focus for the experiment.
13The next generation long baseline neutrino experiment with a beam generated at Tokai, pointed at the Super Kamiokande Water Cerenkov detector in Japan. Optimised to search for the third neutrino mixing angle θ
See also:
A general reference to all relevant experiments in Neutrino Physics, world-wide
Last updated 08 September, 2008 14:52 by G. Barr