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MINOS detector ready to take first data (Forwarded)



 
 
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Old August 18th 03, 06:43 PM
Andrew Yee
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Default MINOS detector ready to take first data (Forwarded)

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Swindon, U.K.

Contact Details:

UK Institutions:

Dr Jenny Thomas
UK Spokesperson
UCL, London
Email:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 7159

Dr Mark Thomson
University of Cambridge
Tel: +44 1223 765122
Fax: +44 1223 353920
e-mail:


Dr Alfons Weber
University of Oxford
Tel: +44 (1865) 2-73315
FAX: +44 (1865) 2-73418
Email:


G.F. Pearce
Rutherford Appleton Lab
Email:

Tel + 44 (0) 1235 445676
Fax +44 (0) 1235 445808

P.G. Harris
University of Sussex
E-mail:

Tel: +44 (0)1273 877214

Press Offices

Fermilab
Kurt Riesselmann, Fermilab Public Affairs
Tel 001-630-840-3351
Email


PPARC
Julia Maddock, PPARC Press Office
Tel +44 (0)1793 442094
Email


14 August 2003

MINOS detector ready to take first data

Today, (August 14th), sees the start of data collection on the Main Injector
Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) detector, situated in the Soudan iron mine,
Minnesota, USA. UK particle physicists, working within an international
collaboration, will use the MINOS detector to investigate the phenomenon of
neutrino mass -- a puzzle that goes to the heart of our understanding of the
Universe.

Neutrinos are pointlike, abundant particles with very little mass. They exist in
three types or 'flavours' and recent experiments (including those at SNO -- the
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory) have demonstrated that neutrinos are capable of
oscillating between these flavours (electron, tau and muon). This can only
happen if one or more of the neutrino flavours does have mass, in contradiction
to the Standard Model of particle physics.

The MINOS detector will start measurements of cosmic ray showers penetrating the
Earth. It is situated in the Soudan Mine, Minnesota. The 30-metre-long detector
consists of 486 massive octagonal planes, lined up like the slices of a loaf of
bread. Each plane consists of a sheet of steel about 8 metres high and 2 1/2 cm
thick, covered on one side with a layer of scintillating plastic that emits
light when struck by a charged particle.

"MINOS can separate neutrino interactions from their antimatter counterparts --
the antineutrinos." explains UK MINOS spokesperson, Jenny Thomas from University
College London. "The data taken now from neutrinos produced in cosmic ray
cascades may provide new insight into why the Universe is made of more matter
than antimatter. At least, for the first time we will be able to compare the
characteristics of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos coming from the atmosphere."

However, MINOS has more ambitious plans in place for August 2004. Whilst most
experiments like SNO measure neutrinos coming from the Sun, when complete, MINOS
will instead study a beam of man-made neutrinos, all of the same type or
'flavour' -- the muon neutrino flavour. This beam will be created at Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) and sent straight through the Earth
to Soudan -- a distance of 735 kilometres. No tunnel is needed because neutrinos
interact so rarely with matter. A detector is currently being built just outside
Fermilab, known as the 'near' detector, similar but smaller than the now
operational MINOS detector, known as the 'far' detector. The 'near' detector
will act as a control, studying the beam as it leaves Fermilab, then the results
will be compared with those from the 'far' detector to see if the neutrinos have
oscillated into electron or tau neutrinos during their journey.

A million million neutrinos will be created at Fermilab each year, but only
1,500 will interact with the nucleus of an atom in the far detector and generate
a signal; the others will pass straight through.

"The realisation that neutrinos oscillate, first demonstrated by the Super
Kamiokande experiment in Japan, has been one of the biggest surprises to emerge
in particle physics since the inception of the Standard Model more than 30 years
ago." says Jenny Thomas. "The MINOS experiment will measure the oscillation
parameters of these neutrinos to an unprecedented accuracy of a few percent; an
amazing feat considering neutrinos can usually pass directly through the Earth
without interacting at all and that their inferred masses are estimated to be
less than 1eV. (The weight ratio of a neutrino to a 1kg bag of sugar is the same
as the ratio of a grain of sand to the weight of the earth!). The parameter
measurement will open up an entire new field of particle physics, to understand
what effect on the universe this tiny neutrino mass has."

Within two years of turning on the neutrino beam, MINOS should produce an
unequivocal measurement of the oscillation of muon neutrinos with none of the
uncertainties associated with the atmospheric or solar neutrino source. If
indeed the findings are positive, then a new era in particle physics will begin.
Theorists will have to incorporate massive neutrinos into the Standard Model,
which will have exciting implications. Furthermore cosmologists will have a
strong candidate for the 'missing mass' of the Universe (which dynamical
gravitational measurements show must exist). The experimental side will be just
as exciting as we plan new experiments to measure precisely how the different
neutrinos change their flavour.

Notes for Editors

Standard Model

The Standard Model of Particle Physics, the theory that we have been using for
30 years to describe the fundamental particles (quarks and leptons) and forces
(bosons) works very well. It has successfully predicted and accounted for what's
seen in experiments at LEP (the Large Electron Positron collider at CERN), the
Tevatron at Fermilab in the US and other particle physics experiments.

The Standard Model is a quantum theory that describes the building blocks of
matter in the Universe -- the fundamental particles -- and how they interact
through the fundamental forces of electromagnetic, strong and weak. The fourth
force of gravity, is not currently part of the model.

Matter particles are divided into three generations comprising six quarks of
increasing mass (up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top) and six leptons (the
electron, muon, and tau and their respective neutrino partners, predicted to
have zero mass). Each particle also has an antiparticle of opposite charge.

The SNO results

The Sun emits electron neutrinos, created in vast numbers by the thermonuclear
reactions that fuel our parent star. Since the early 1970s, several experiments
have detected neutrinos arriving on Earth, but they have found only a fraction
of the number expected from detailed theories of energy production in the Sun.

Data taken entirely from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory [SNO] in Canada shows
without doubt that the number of observed solar neutrinos is only a fraction of
the total emitted from the Sun -- clear evidence that they have chameleon type
properties and change type en-route to Earth.

Funding

Funding for the MINOS experiment has come from the Office of Science of the U.S.
Department of Energy, the UK's Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council,
the U.S. National Science Foundation, the State of Minnesota and the University
of Minnesota. More than 200 scientists from Brazil, France, Greece, Russia,
United Kingdom and the United States are involved in the project.

Fermilab is a national laboratory funded by the Office of Science of the U.S.
Department of Energy, operated by Universities Research Association, Inc.

PPARC has funded the UK's involvement at £6 million, including £2 million worth
of hardware. The total project cost is about $150 million, of which $60 million
is on detectors and the balance on the beam line from Fermilab.

Collaboration

Institutions from the USA, UK, Brazil, France and Russia are part of the MINOS
collaboration.
For a full list (with contact details), please see
http://www-numi.fnal.gov/collab/institut.html

UK institutions involved a University College London, Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Sussex.

The UK groups have provided:

* Engineering deign
* Software for data analysis
* Data acquisition for both detectors -- Near (not yet completed) and Far
(completed)
* Far detector electronics
* Calibration detector at CERN (MINOS third detector) -- used to calibrate the
'near' and 'far' detectors by using a beam of better-understood particles
(electrons, pions, muons and protons) from CERN.
* Near detector readout (fibre optic cables, photo multiplier tubes and assemblies)
* Light-injection system to calibrate all 200,000 detector readout channels

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) is the UK's
strategic science investment agency. It funds research, education and public
understanding in four areas of science -- particle physics, astronomy, cosmology
and space science.

PPARC is government funded and provides research grants and studentships to
scientists in British universities, gives researchers access to world-class
facilities and funds the UK membership of international bodies such as the
European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), and the European Space Agency.
It also contributes money for the UK telescopes overseas on La Palma, Hawaii,
Australia and in Chile, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal
Observatory, Edinburgh and the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, which includes the
Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank observatory.

PPARC's Public Understanding of Science and Technology Awards Scheme funds both
small local projects and national initiatives aimed at improving public
understanding of its areas of science.

Images
[http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/Press/dsc00813.jpg (137KB)]
UK spokesperson Jenny Thomas, working on MINOS electronics at UCL.

Additional MINOS images are at available:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/pr.../MINOS_photos/

 




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