Lecture

Neutrino Telescope: Detecting High Energy Neutrinos in the Mediterranean Sea

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In course

PHYS-452: Radiation detection

The course presents the detection of ionizing radiation in the keV and MeV energy ranges. Physical processes of radiation/matter interaction are introduced. All steps of detection are covered, as well as detectors, instrumentations and measurements methods ...

Description

This lecture discusses the operation of a Neutrino Telescope in the Mediterranean Sea since 2008, which uses a large water Cerenkov detector with 900 PMTs to detect signals from High Energy neutrinos. It explains the process of detecting neutrinos, their oscillation, masses, and hierarchy. The lecture also covers the detector design, expected performance with angular resolution, and effective area for neutrino detection. The conclusion highlights the detector's use in detecting galactic neutrinos and its contributions to understanding neutrino properties.

Instructor

Vincent Pierre Lamirand

After a PhD on the measurement of (p,n) reactions cross sections on small accelerators (IRSN, France), I have worked on the development of neutron detectors and measurement methods for reactor physics (CEA, France). I am part of the LRS staff since October 2014.

Official source

Related concepts (14)

Neutrino

A neutrino (njuːˈtriːnoʊ ; denoted by the Greek letter ν) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of 1 /2) that interacts only 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 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.

Supernova neutrinos

Supernova neutrinos are weakly interactive elementary particles produced during a core-collapse supernova explosion. A massive star collapses at the end of its life, emitting on the order of 1058 neutrinos and antineutrinos in all lepton flavors. The luminosity of different neutrino and antineutrino species are roughly the same. They carry away about 99% of the gravitational energy of the dying star as a burst lasting tens of seconds. The typical supernova neutrino energies are 10MeV.

Neutrino oscillation

Neutrino oscillation is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which a neutrino created with a specific lepton family number ("lepton flavor": electron, muon, or tau) can later be measured to have a different lepton family number. The probability of measuring a particular flavor for a neutrino varies between three known states, as it propagates through space. First predicted by Bruno Pontecorvo in 1957, neutrino oscillation has since been observed by a multitude of experiments in several different contexts.

Neutrino astronomy

Neutrino astronomy is the branch of astronomy that observes astronomical objects with neutrino detectors in special observatories. Neutrinos are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the Sun or high energy astrophysical phenomena, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms in the atmosphere. Neutrinos rarely interact with matter, meaning that it is unlikely for them to scatter along their trajectory, unlike photons.

Neutrino detector

A neutrino detector is a physics apparatus which is designed to study neutrinos. Because neutrinos only weakly interact with other particles of matter, neutrino detectors must be very large to detect a significant number of neutrinos. Neutrino detectors are often built underground, to isolate the detector from cosmic rays and other background radiation. The field of neutrino astronomy is still very much in its infancy – the only confirmed extraterrestrial sources are the Sun and the supernova 1987A in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud.

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