Scientists will extract information about neutrino oscillations — transmutations
of electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino «flavors» from one to another.
The key for NOvA is that the greater the mass
of the electron neutrino flavor, the more likely the beam of neutrinos will interact with the hundreds of miles of matter they cross on the way to the detector.
So rather than, say, a 10 percent chance
of an electron neutrino turning into a muon neutrino, for example, physicists wonder if the odds are lower that an electron antineutrino turns into a muon antineutrino.
This is the detected pattern
of an electron neutrino candidate event observed by Super-Kamiokande.
The group did spot an odd uptick in the number
of electron neutrinos at lower energies — 369 events instead of 273.
And here, too, it stood to reason that
some of electron neutrinos had oscillated.
In doing so, Daya Bay researchers searched for a faster, smaller oscillation imposed on top of the longer, slower one that accounts for the disappearance
of electron neutrinos from the sun, which is dominated by a different mixing angle.
Not exact matches
They know that the fusion processes at its heart produce
electron neutrinos — uncharged relatives
of the
electron, and one
of the three known types
of neutrino.
When the dust settled in the 1970s, we were left with two kinds
of elementary particles: quarks, which group into heavier composites like protons and neutrons; and lighter particles called leptons, like the
electron and the
neutrino, which can move freely without bunching into heavier combinations.
The sun's core should produce
electron neutrinos in a range
of energies, but detectors see fewer high - energy ones than predicted.
KATRIN will study
neutrinos, which are less than a millionth the mass
of an
electron, by sifting through the aftermath
of radioactive decays
of tritium, an isotope
of hydrogen with two neutrons.
MINI MASSES KATRIN's spectrometer, shown here, will precisely measure the energy
of electrons emitted in the decay
of tritium, which will help scientists pin down the minuscule mass
of neutrinos.
It has now detected the arrival
of 28
electron neutrinos, showing direct signs
of this type
of neutrino oscillation, the team announced last week at a physics meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.
Neutrino «disappearance» experiments have already seen indirect signs
of this muon -
electron shift.
Several years ago, an experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, US, turned up evidence
of what appeared to be a sterile
neutrino with a mass
of about 1
electron volt.
That came a few years later in 2001, when Arthur McDonald
of the Sudbury
Neutrino Detector in Ontario, Canada, announced that
electron neutrinos could also change into the two other types.
Although the exact masses remain unknown, researchers estimate
neutrinos to be two million times lighter than the next heavier particle, the
electron, and this large mass difference is one
of the great puzzles
of neutrino physics.
But if they are within 100,000 times or so the mass
of normal
neutrinos — or a few thousand
electron volts — most should still exist, with some occasionally decaying into lighter
neutrinos and X-ray photons.
The three types
of neutrino —
electron, tau and muon — interact with the matter in slightly different ways, with the more massive muon and tau varieties able to escape from deeper within the neutron star.
Other priorities include: upgrading the LHC, which shut down in February for two years to boost its energies from 7 TeV to 14 TeV; plans to build an International Linear Collider in Japan, to collide beams
of electrons and positrons as a complement to the LHC's proton findings; and a major US project to exploit high - intensity
neutrino beams generated at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.
There are three known types
of neutrinos: muon,
electron and tau.
The laws
of physics may permit a
neutrino with a mass to change from one type into another, so
electron neutrinos may simply transform themselves into undetectable muon or tau
neutrinos before they fly across the 150 million kilometres
of space between the Sun and the Earth.
Early results indicate that a small fraction
of the muon antineutrinos behave like
electron antineutrinos after the 30 - metre flight, implying that
neutrinos do have a small mass.
These include atomic constituents such as
electrons, protons, and neutrons (protons and neutrons are actually composite particles, made up
of quarks), particles produced by radiative and scattering processes, such as photons,
neutrinos, and muons, as well as a wide range
of exotic particles.
The liquid was chosen principally because it contains large numbers
of protons, with which
electron neutrinos would occasionally interact to produce a neutron and a positron.
The key lies not in individual reactions between
neutrinos and
electrons, but in the way the vast numbers
of neutrinos affect wave - like fluctuations in the density
of electrons in the plasma, known as «plasma waves».
Recently, the T2K experiment has finished collecting another set
of data that has doubled the amount
of data available in the
electron neutrino configuration, and its results are expected to be presented later this year.
In the
neutrinos» case, Cohen and Glashow calculate that the wake would mostly consist
of electrons paired with their antimatter twins, positrons.
This occurs when a nucleus
of beryllium - 7 captures an
electron and is transformed into a nucleus
of lithium - 7, emitting a
neutrino.
Because
of that link,
neutrinos can't travel faster than light unless
electrons do too — although
electrons needn't travel as fast as the
neutrinos.
That means that some
of the
electron -
neutrinos generated in the Sun must be turning into muon - and tau -
neutrinos, and that Super-K detected a few
of the converted particles, says Art McDonald
of Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.
These particles include atomic constituents such as
electrons, protons, and neutrons (protons and neutrons are actually composite particles, made up
of quarks), as well as other particles such as photons and
neutrinos which are produced copiously in the sun.
The SNO researchers measured the flux
of electron -
neutrinos and compared it to earlier results from Super-K, which used ordinary water.
The
electron carries away most
of the
neutrino's energy and zooms away, producing a detectable flash
of light.
For each
of the three flavors
of neutrino, there is also a corresponding antineutrino called, sensibly enough,
electron antineutrino, muon antineutrino and tau antineutrino.
Here, too, the experiment detected a different mix
of neutrinos than expected — in this case, fewer
electron neutrinos and more taus and muons.
Measuring the energy
of the
electron, therefore, can illuminate the energy — and consequently, the mass —
of the
neutrino.
Two
of those masses are likely to identify as
electron neutrinos a significant portion
of the time, and one mass only infrequently comes up as
electron neutrino, says Messier.
Physicists are not sure if the greatest, or heaviest,
of the three masses is most likely to be an
electron neutrino or least likely to be an
electron neutrino.
In the process, positive
electrons (positrons) and
neutrinos (n) are also produced along with about 25 million electronvolts (MeV)
of thermal energy for every four protons burned; one electronvolt is the energy an
electron acquires by passing through a potential
of one volt.
On the other hand, if the
electron neutrinos contain the heaviest masses, then the additional Earth - induced mass would make them mix less with those
of the other two
neutrino flavors.
Scientists know the mass
of every other fundamental particle, such as the
electron, but the
neutrino — at least a million times as light as the
electron — is far more elusive because
of its transformative ways.
Along with quarks, the family
of particles known as leptons (
neutrinos,
electrons, muons and tau particles) composes the elementary constituents
of the universe.
The CDF workers looked for decay products, such as
electrons, muons,
neutrinos and mesons,
of these particles.
Through rudimentary computer modeling, Wilson discovered that that something was
neutrinos, generated in copious amounts — on the order
of 1 followed by 58 zeroes — when the
electrons and protons in the core turn into neutrons.
As Formaggio explains it, when a radioactive atom such as tritium decays, it turns into an isotope
of helium and, in the process, also releases an
electron and a
neutrino.
Called the NuMI Off - axis
Electron Neutrino Appearance experiment, or NOvA, the project relies on a 15,400 - ton detector containing 3 million gallons
of a liquid solution with a material known as a scintillator.
In a radioactive metamorphosis called single beta decay, a neutron (a neutral particle) in the nucleus
of an unstable atom spontaneously turns into a proton (a positive particle) and emits an
electron and an antineutrino — the antimatter twin
of a
neutrino.
In particle interactions, although
electrons and
electron -
neutrinos can be created and destroyed, the sum
of the number
of electrons and
electron -
neutrinos is conserved.
Astrophysicists put the upper limit
of the mass
of the
neutrino at 0.28
electron volt, based on the distribution
of galaxies according to the 3 - D Mega Z map.