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63-526: The goal of the RNO-G experiment is detecting ultra-high energy neutrinos and estimating their flux . These particles could help to better understand the most violent events in the universe , including but not limited to active galactic nuclei (AGN) and gamma ray bursts (GRB). A neutrino detection by RNO-G would also extend the energy range at which neutrinos can be used for multi-messenger astronomy . Located at 3,216 metres (10,551 ft) above sea level,

126-400: A beta decay reaction may interact in a distant detector as a muon or tau neutrino, as defined by the flavor of the charged lepton produced in the detector. This oscillation occurs because the three mass state components of the produced flavor travel at slightly different speeds, so that their quantum mechanical wave packets develop relative phase shifts that change how they combine to produce

189-408: A consequence. For example, an electron neutrino produced in a beta decay reaction may interact in a distant detector as a muon or tau neutrino. The three mass values are not yet known as of 2024, but laboratory experiments and cosmological observations have determined the differences of their squares, an upper limit on their sum (<  2.14 × 10  kg ), and an upper limit on the mass of

252-628: A difference between the neutrino and antineutrino could simply be due to one particle with two possible chiralities. As of 2019 , it is not known whether neutrinos are Majorana or Dirac particles. It is possible to test this property experimentally. For example, if neutrinos are indeed Majorana particles, then lepton-number violating processes such as neutrinoless double-beta decay would be allowed, while they would not if neutrinos are Dirac particles. Several experiments have been and are being conducted to search for this process, e.g. GERDA , EXO , SNO+ , and CUORE . The cosmic neutrino background

315-504: A gamma ray. The coincidence of both events—positron annihilation and neutron capture—gives a unique signature of an antineutrino interaction. In February 1965, the first neutrino found in nature was identified by a group including Frederick Reines and Friedel Sellschop . The experiment was performed in a specially prepared chamber at a depth of 3 km in the East Rand ("ERPM") gold mine near Boksburg , South Africa. A plaque in

378-605: A laboratory, but is predicted to happen within stars and supernovae. The process affects the abundance of isotopes seen in the universe . Neutrino-induced disintegration of deuterium nuclei has been observed in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, which uses a heavy water detector. There are three known types ( flavors ) of neutrinos: electron neutrino ν e , muon neutrino ν μ , and tau neutrino ν τ , named after their partner leptons in

441-456: A muon antineutrino with L μ = − 1 {\displaystyle L_{\mathrm {\mu } }=-1} that cancels the muon's L μ = + 1 {\displaystyle L_{\mathrm {\mu } }=+1} . Lepton flavor is only approximately conserved, and is notably not conserved in neutrino oscillation . However, both the total lepton number and lepton flavor are still conserved in

504-412: A neutrino and antineutrino. Some authors prefer to use lepton numbers that match the signs of the charges of the leptons involved, following the convention in use for the sign of weak isospin and the sign of strangeness quantum number ( for quarks ), both of which conventionally have the otherwise arbitrary sign of the quantum number match the sign of the particles' electric charges. When following

567-473: A new major field of research that still continues. Eventual confirmation of the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation led to two Nobel prizes, one to R. Davis , who conceived and led the Homestake experiment and Masatoshi Koshiba of Kamiokande, whose work confirmed it, and one to Takaaki Kajita of Super-Kamiokande and A.B. McDonald of Sudbury Neutrino Observatory for their joint experiment, which confirmed

630-566: A process analogous to light traveling through a transparent material . This process is not directly observable because it does not produce ionizing radiation , but gives rise to the Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein effect . Only a small fraction of the neutrino's energy is transferred to the material. Onia For each neutrino, there also exists a corresponding antiparticle , called an antineutrino , which also has no electric charge and half-integer spin. They are distinguished from

693-418: A proton, electron, and the smaller neutral particle (now called an electron antineutrino ): Fermi's paper, written in 1934, unified Pauli's neutrino with Paul Dirac 's positron and Werner Heisenberg 's neutron–proton model and gave a solid theoretical basis for future experimental work. By 1934, there was experimental evidence against Bohr's idea that energy conservation is invalid for beta decay: At

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756-605: A varying superposition of three flavors. Each flavor component thereby oscillates as the neutrino travels, with the flavors varying in relative strengths. The relative flavor proportions when the neutrino interacts represent the relative probabilities for that flavor of interaction to produce the corresponding flavor of charged lepton. There are other possibilities in which neutrinos could oscillate even if they were massless: If Lorentz symmetry were not an exact symmetry, neutrinos could experience Lorentz-violating oscillations . Neutrinos traveling through matter, in general, undergo

819-472: Is also a probe of whether neutrinos are Majorana particles , since there should be a different number of cosmic neutrinos detected in either the Dirac or Majorana case. Neutrinos can interact with a nucleus, changing it to another nucleus. This process is used in radiochemical neutrino detectors . In this case, the energy levels and spin states within the target nucleus have to be taken into account to estimate

882-545: Is associated with the correspondingly named charged lepton . Although neutrinos were long believed to be massless, it is now known that there are three discrete neutrino masses with different tiny values (the smallest of which could even be zero ), but the three masses do not uniquely correspond to the three flavors: A neutrino created with a specific flavor is a specific mixture of all three mass states (a quantum superposition ). Similar to some other neutral particles , neutrinos oscillate between different flavors in flight as

945-493: Is conventionally called the "normal hierarchy", while in the "inverted hierarchy", the opposite would hold. Several major experimental efforts are underway to help establish which is correct. A neutrino created in a specific flavor eigenstate is in an associated specific quantum superposition of all three mass eigenstates. The three masses differ so little that they cannot possibly be distinguished experimentally within any practical flight path. The proportion of each mass state in

1008-463: Is important to understand because many neutrinos emitted by fusion in the Sun pass through the dense matter in the solar core (where essentially all solar fusion takes place) on their way to detectors on Earth. Starting in 1998, experiments began to show that solar and atmospheric neutrinos change flavors (see Super-Kamiokande and Sudbury Neutrino Observatory ). This resolved the solar neutrino problem:

1071-533: Is no experimental evidence for a non-zero magnetic moment in neutrinos. Weak interactions create neutrinos in one of three leptonic flavors : electron neutrinos ( ν e ), muon neutrinos ( ν μ ), or tau neutrinos ( ν τ ), associated with the corresponding charged leptons, the electron ( e ), muon ( μ ), and tau ( τ ), respectively. Although neutrinos were long believed to be massless, it

1134-456: Is now known that there are three discrete neutrino masses; each neutrino flavor state is a linear combination of the three discrete mass eigenstates. Although only differences of squares of the three mass values are known as of 2016, experiments have shown that these masses are tiny compared to any other particle. From cosmological measurements, it has been calculated that the sum of the three neutrino masses must be less than one-millionth that of

1197-403: Is preserved in interactions (as opposed to multiplicative quantum numbers such as parity, where the product is preserved instead). The lepton number L {\displaystyle L} is defined by L = n ℓ − n ℓ ¯ , {\displaystyle L=n_{\ell }-n_{\overline {\ell }},} where Lepton number

1260-551: Is wireless via LTE. An event view from simulations for RNO-G. The neutrino induced particle cascade creates radio emission via the Askaryan effect . This is strongest at the Cherenkov angle at 56°, here shown as a red cone. The radio signal will propagate to the detector according to the ice density (direct and reflected). On the right shown are signals in the surface antennas (upper panel), the reconstruction antennas (middle) and

1323-475: The 1995 Nobel Prize . In this experiment, now known as the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment , antineutrinos created in a nuclear reactor by beta decay reacted with protons to produce neutrons and positrons: The positron quickly finds an electron, and they annihilate each other. The two resulting gamma rays (γ) are detectable. The neutron can be detected by its capture on an appropriate nucleus, releasing

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1386-455: The Solvay conference of that year, measurements of the energy spectra of beta particles (electrons) were reported, showing that there is a strict limit on the energy of electrons from each type of beta decay. Such a limit is not expected if the conservation of energy is invalid, in which case any amount of energy would be statistically available in at least a few decays. The natural explanation of

1449-520: The Standard Model (see table at right). The current best measurement of the number of neutrino types comes from observing the decay of the Z boson . This particle can decay into any light neutrino and its antineutrino, and the more available types of light neutrinos, the shorter the lifetime of the Z ;boson. Measurements of the Z lifetime have shown that three light neutrino flavors couple to

1512-523: The cosmic neutrino background (CNB). R. Davis and M. Koshiba were jointly awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics. Both conducted pioneering work on solar neutrino detection, and Koshiba's work also resulted in the first real-time observation of neutrinos from the SN 1987A supernova in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud . These efforts marked the beginning of neutrino astronomy . SN 1987A represents

1575-529: The muon neutrino (already hypothesised with the name neutretto ), which earned them the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics . When the third type of lepton, the tau , was discovered in 1975 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center , it was also expected to have an associated neutrino (the tau neutrino). The first evidence for this third neutrino type came from the observation of missing energy and momentum in tau decays analogous to

1638-406: The muon decays and In these decay reactions, the creation of an electron is accompanied by the creation of an electron antineutrino , and the creation of a positron is accompanied by the creation of an electron neutrino. Likewise, a decaying negative muon results in the creation of a muon neutrino , while a decaying positive muon results in the creation of a muon antineutrino . Finally,

1701-405: The proton and the electron . He considered that the new particle was emitted from the nucleus together with the electron or beta particle in the process of beta decay and had a mass similar to the electron. James Chadwick discovered a much more massive neutral nuclear particle in 1932 and named it a neutron also, leaving two kinds of particles with the same name. The word "neutrino" entered

1764-405: The weak decay of a lepton into a lower-mass lepton always results in the production of a neutrino - antineutrino pair: One neutrino carries through the lepton number of the decaying heavy lepton, (a tauon in this example, whose faint residue is a tau neutrino ) and an antineutrino that cancels the lepton number of the newly created, lighter lepton that replaced the original. (In this example,

1827-454: The 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics for their landmark finding, theoretical and experimental, that neutrinos can change flavors. As well as specific sources, a general background level of neutrinos is expected to pervade the universe, theorized to occur due to two main sources. Around 1 second after the Big Bang , neutrinos decoupled, giving rise to a background level of neutrinos known as

1890-668: The Standard Model, such as supersymmetry , predict branching ratios of order 10 to 10 . The Mu2e experiment, in construction as of 2017, has a planned sensitivity of order 10 . Because the lepton number conservation law in fact is violated by chiral anomalies , there are problems applying this symmetry universally over all energy scales. However, the quantum number B − L is commonly conserved in Grand Unified Theory models. If neutrinos turn out to be Majorana fermions , neither individual lepton numbers, nor

1953-408: The Standard Model. Numerous searches for physics beyond the Standard Model incorporate searches for lepton number or lepton flavor violation, such as the hypothetical decay Experiments such as MEGA and SINDRUM have searched for lepton number violation in muon decays to electrons; MEG set the current branching limit of order 10 and plans to lower to limit to 10 after 2016. Some theories beyond

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2016-473: The Z. The correspondence between the six quarks in the Standard Model and the six leptons, among them the three neutrinos, suggests to physicists' intuition that there should be exactly three types of neutrino. There are several active research areas involving the neutrino with aspirations of finding: International scientific collaborations install large neutrino detectors near nuclear reactors or in neutrino beams from particle accelerators to better constrain

2079-529: The beta decay leading to the discovery of the electron neutrino. The first detection of tau neutrino interactions was announced in 2000 by the DONUT collaboration at Fermilab ; its existence had already been inferred by both theoretical consistency and experimental data from the Large Electron–Positron Collider . In the 1960s, the now-famous Homestake experiment made the first measurement of

2142-471: The beta decay spectrum as first measured in 1934 was that only a limited (and conserved) amount of energy was available, and a new particle was sometimes taking a varying fraction of this limited energy, leaving the rest for the beta particle. Pauli made use of the occasion to publicly emphasize that the still-undetected "neutrino" must be an actual particle. The first evidence of the reality of neutrinos came in 1938 via simultaneous cloud-chamber measurements of

2205-409: The concept. For the case of neutrinos this theory has gained popularity as it can be used, in combination with the seesaw mechanism , to explain why neutrino masses are so small compared to those of the other elementary particles, such as electrons or quarks. Majorana neutrinos would have the property that the neutrino and antineutrino could be distinguished only by chirality; what experiments observe as

2268-466: The context of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons . Because antineutrinos and neutrinos are neutral particles, it is possible that they are the same particle. Rather than conventional Dirac fermions , neutral particles can be another type of spin  ⁠ 1  / 2 ⁠ particle called Majorana particles , named after the Italian physicist Ettore Majorana who first proposed

2331-451: The detector array is planned to consist of 35 station. By 2022 seven stations have been deployed and are taking data. Each station consists of three in-ice strings at 100m depth to measure particle cascades in ice induced by neutrinos and other particles and a surface component that is also sensitive to cosmic rays . The stations operate autonomous and are powered by renewable energies, such as solar panels and wind turbines. The communication

2394-511: The electric-charge-sign convention, the lepton number (shown with an over-bar here, to reduce confusion) of an electron , muon , tauon , and any neutrino counts as L ¯ = − 1 ; {\displaystyle {\bar {L}}=-1;} the lepton number of the positron , antimuon , antitauon , and any antineutrino counts as L ¯ = + 1. {\displaystyle {\bar {L}}=+1.} When this reversed-sign convention

2457-417: The electron and the recoil of the nucleus. In 1942, Wang Ganchang first proposed the use of beta capture to experimentally detect neutrinos. In the 20 July 1956 issue of Science , Clyde Cowan , Frederick Reines , Francis B. "Kiko" Harrison, Herald W. Kruse, and Austin D. McGuire published confirmation that they had detected the neutrino, a result that was rewarded almost forty years later with

2520-414: The electron neutrino, with other approaches to this problem in the planning stages. Lepton number In particle physics , lepton number (historically also called lepton charge ) is a conserved quantum number representing the difference between the number of leptons and the number of antileptons in an elementary particle reaction. Lepton number is an additive quantum number , so its sum

2583-728: The electron neutrino. Neutrinos are fermions with spin of ⁠ 1  / 2 ⁠ . For each neutrino, there also exists a corresponding antiparticle , called an antineutrino , which also has spin of ⁠ 1  / 2 ⁠ and no electric charge. Antineutrinos are distinguished from neutrinos by having opposite-signed lepton number and weak isospin , and right-handed instead of left-handed chirality. To conserve total lepton number (in nuclear beta decay), electron neutrinos only appear together with positrons (anti-electrons) or electron-antineutrinos, whereas electron antineutrinos only appear with electrons or electron neutrinos. Neutrinos are created by various radioactive decays ;

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2646-405: The electron neutrinos produced in the Sun had partly changed into other flavors which the experiments could not detect. Although individual experiments, such as the set of solar neutrino experiments, are consistent with non-oscillatory mechanisms of neutrino flavor conversion, taken altogether, neutrino experiments imply the existence of neutrino oscillations. Especially relevant in this context are

2709-451: The electron. More formally, neutrino flavor eigenstates (creation and annihilation combinations) are not the same as the neutrino mass eigenstates (simply labeled "1", "2", and "3"). As of 2024, it is not known which of these three is the heaviest. The neutrino mass hierarchy consists of two possible configurations. In analogy with the mass hierarchy of the charged leptons, the configuration with mass 2 being lighter than mass 3

2772-600: The existence of all three neutrino flavors and found no deficit. A practical method for investigating neutrino oscillations was first suggested by Bruno Pontecorvo in 1957 using an analogy with kaon oscillations; over the subsequent 10 years, he developed the mathematical formalism and the modern formulation of vacuum oscillations. In 1985 Stanislav Mikheyev and Alexei Smirnov (expanding on 1978 work by Lincoln Wolfenstein ) noted that flavor oscillations can be modified when neutrinos propagate through matter. This so-called Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein effect (MSW effect)

2835-486: The flux of electron neutrinos arriving from the core of the Sun and found a value that was between one third and one half the number predicted by the Standard Solar Model . This discrepancy, which became known as the solar neutrino problem , remained unresolved for some thirty years, while possible problems with both the experiment and the solar model were investigated, but none could be found. Eventually, it

2898-451: The following list is not exhaustive, but includes some of those processes: The majority of neutrinos which are detected about the Earth are from nuclear reactions inside the Sun. At the surface of the Earth, the flux is about 65 billion ( 6.5 × 10 ) solar neutrinos , per second per square centimeter. Neutrinos can be used for tomography of the interior of the Earth. The neutrino

2961-593: The hydrogen nuclei in the water molecules. A hydrogen nucleus is a single proton, so simultaneous nuclear interactions, which would occur within a heavier nucleus, do not need to be considered for the detection experiment. Within a cubic meter of water placed right outside a nuclear reactor, only relatively few such interactions can be recorded, but the setup is now used for measuring the reactor's plutonium production rate. Very much like neutrons do in nuclear reactors , neutrinos can induce fission reactions within heavy nuclei . So far, this reaction has not been measured in

3024-513: The initial state, then the final state has only matched lepton and anti-lepton pairs: electron neutrinos appear in the final state together with only positrons (anti-electrons) or electron antineutrinos, and electron antineutrinos with electrons or electron neutrinos. Antineutrinos are produced in nuclear beta decay together with a beta particle (in beta decay a neutron decays into a proton, electron, and antineutrino). All antineutrinos observed thus far had right-handed helicity (i.e., only one of

3087-505: The main building commemorates the discovery. The experiments also implemented a primitive neutrino astronomy and looked at issues of neutrino physics and weak interactions. The antineutrino discovered by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines was the antiparticle of the electron neutrino. In 1962, Leon M. Lederman , Melvin Schwartz , and Jack Steinberger showed that more than one type of neutrino exists by first detecting interactions of

3150-513: The neutrino masses and the values for the magnitude and rates of oscillations between neutrino flavors. These experiments are thereby searching for the existence of CP violation in the neutrino sector; that is, whether or not the laws of physics treat neutrinos and antineutrinos differently. The KATRIN experiment in Germany began to acquire data in June 2018 to determine the value of the mass of

3213-404: The neutrinos by having opposite signs of lepton number and opposite chirality (and consequently opposite-sign weak isospin). As of 2016, no evidence has been found for any other difference. So far, despite extensive and continuing searches for exceptions, in all observed leptonic processes there has never been any change in total lepton number; for example, if the total lepton number is zero in

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3276-578: The only verified detection of neutrinos from a supernova. However, many stars have gone supernova in the universe, leaving a theorized diffuse supernova neutrino background . Neutrinos have half-integer spin ( ⁠ 1  / 2 ⁠ ħ ); therefore they are fermions . Neutrinos are leptons. They have only been observed to interact through the weak force , although it is assumed that they also interact gravitationally. Since they have non-zero mass, theoretical considerations permit neutrinos to interact magnetically, but do not require them to. As yet there

3339-468: The phased array trigger (lower panel). Other radio neutrino experiments: Neutrino A neutrino ( / nj uː ˈ t r iː n oʊ / new- TREE -noh ; denoted by the Greek letter ν ) is an elementary particle that interacts 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

3402-409: The probability for an interaction. In general the interaction probability increases with the number of neutrons and protons within a nucleus. It is very hard to uniquely identify neutrino interactions among the natural background of radioactivity. For this reason, in early experiments a special reaction channel was chosen to facilitate the identification: the interaction of an antineutrino with one of

3465-688: The pure flavor states produced has been found to depend profoundly on the flavor. The relationship between flavor and mass eigenstates is encoded in the PMNS matrix . Experiments have established moderate- to low-precision values for the elements of this matrix, with the single complex phase in the matrix being only poorly known, as of 2016. A non-zero mass allows neutrinos to possibly have a tiny magnetic moment ; if so, neutrinos would interact electromagnetically, although no such interaction has ever been observed. Neutrinos oscillate between different flavors in flight. For example, an electron neutrino produced in

3528-428: The reactor experiment KamLAND and the accelerator experiments such as MINOS . The KamLAND experiment has indeed identified oscillations as the neutrino flavor conversion mechanism involved in the solar electron neutrinos. Similarly MINOS confirms the oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos and gives a better determination of the mass squared splitting. Takaaki Kajita of Japan, and Arthur B. McDonald of Canada, received

3591-947: The scientific vocabulary through Enrico Fermi , who used it during a conference in Paris in July ;1932 and at the Solvay Conference in October ;1933, where Pauli also employed it. The name (the Italian equivalent of "little neutral one") was jokingly coined by Edoardo Amaldi during a conversation with Fermi at the Institute of Physics of via Panisperna in Rome, in order to distinguish this light neutral particle from Chadwick's heavy neutron. In Fermi's theory of beta decay , Chadwick's large neutral particle could decay to

3654-421: The total lepton number L ≡ L e + L μ + L τ , {\displaystyle L\equiv L_{\mathrm {e} }+L_{\mathrm {\mu } }+L_{\mathrm {\tau } },} nor would be conserved, e.g. in neutrinoless double beta decay , where two neutrinos colliding head-on might actually annihilate, similar to the (never observed) collision of

3717-449: The two possible spin states has ever been seen), while neutrinos were all left-handed. Antineutrinos were first detected as a result of their interaction with protons in a large tank of water. This was installed next to a nuclear reactor as a controllable source of the antineutrinos (see Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment ). Researchers around the world have begun to investigate the possibility of using antineutrinos for reactor monitoring in

3780-457: Was introduced in 1953 to explain the absence of reactions such as in the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment , which instead observed This process, inverse beta decay , conserves lepton number, as the incoming antineutrino has lepton number −1, while the outgoing positron (antielectron) also has lepton number −1. In addition to lepton number, lepton family numbers are defined as Prominent examples of lepton flavor conservation are

3843-564: Was long thought to be zero . The rest mass of the neutrino is much smaller than that of the other known elementary particles (excluding massless 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. Weak interactions create neutrinos in one of three leptonic flavors : Each flavor

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3906-423: Was postulated first by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to explain how beta decay could conserve energy , momentum , and angular momentum ( spin ). In contrast to Niels Bohr , who proposed a statistical version of the conservation laws to explain the observed continuous energy spectra in beta decay , Pauli hypothesized an undetected particle that he called a "neutron", using the same -on ending employed for naming both

3969-404: Was realized that both were actually correct and that the discrepancy between them was due to neutrinos being more complex than was previously assumed. It was postulated that the three neutrinos had nonzero and slightly different masses, and could therefore oscillate into undetectable flavors on their flight to the Earth. This hypothesis was investigated by a new series of experiments, thereby opening

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