How to Make a Neutrino Beam

“ How to make a neutrino beam

Neutrinos are elusive particles that are difficult to study, yet they may help explain some of the biggest mysteries of our universe. Using accelerators to make neutrino beams, scientists are unveiling the neutrinos’ secrets.

By Jessica Orwig

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, but they rarely interact with matter. Some of today’s outstanding scientific mysteries, such as why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, could be solved by studying neutrinos and detecting their interactions with matter.

Billions of neutrinos from natural sources, including the Sun, zip through every square centimeter of the Earth each second. Yet scientists cannot easily determine their initial type or exactly how far they traveled before reaching a detector.

To study neutrinos more effectively, scientists produce high-intensity neutrino beams using proton accelerators. Only a few laboratories in the world can manufacture such neutrino beams: the J-PARC laboratory in Japan, the research center CERN in Europe and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in the United States.  Every two seconds, Fermilab fires a trillion neutrinos toward particle detectors located in northern Minnesota, more than 450 miles away. This intense beam produces about a thousand neutrino interactions per year in the detectors. 

Continue to read on: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org

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