oscillation Archives

Even Bananas 08: The solar neutrino problem

A woman with a black shirt looks concerned and holds a banana in one hand. To the right of her, an illustration of a sun-like object that says "The Solar Neutrino Problem" in the middle of it. An illustration of three bananas is in the right-hand corner. Different flavors of neutrinos appear to come out of the sun-like object. Two electron neutrinos are in dark brown, other neutrinos are light in shade.

Throw on your shades: Today on #EvenBananas, we’re looking at particles from the sun — and how trillions of them went missing. Join Fermilab scientist Kirsty Duffy to explore how an experiment using 100,000 gallons of dry cleaning fluid a mile underground led to one of the biggest mysteries in particle physics: the solar neutrino problem.

Particle detector at Fermilab plays crucial role in Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

One of the DUNE near detector's subdetectors, SAND, will detect neutrinos with an electronic calorimeter, which measures particle energy, and a tracker, which records particle momenta and charge. A second subdetector will use liquid argon to mimic the neutrino interactions in the far detector. The third will use gaseous argon. Working together, they will measure particles with more precision than other neutrino detectors have been able to achieve. Credit: DUNE collaboration

DUNE’s near detector, located at Fermilab, will take vital measurements of neutrino beam energy and composition before it reaches the experiment’s far detector in South Dakota. Its unmatched precision measurements will offer its own opportunities for the discovery of new physics.

NOvA shines new light on how neutrinos behave

NOvA scientists have seen evidence that one of the three neutrino mass states might not include equal parts of muon and tau flavor, as previously thought. Scientists refer to this as “nonmaximal mixing,” and NOvA’s result is the first hint that this may be the case for the third mass state.

Nonmaximal thrill seekers

Is the third neutrino mass state an equal mixture of muon and tau neutrinos? Preliminary results from NOvA, presented at Neutrino 2016, suggest it isn’t.

Seeing clearly with electron neutrinos

NOvA announces its first cross section measurement, the probability than an electron neutrino interacts with the protons and neutrons inside the NOvA near detector. The measurement draws on the largest data set in the electron neutrino energy region from 1 GeV to 3 GeV.

Muon neutrinos make a disappearance

NOvA takes a first measurement of disappearances of muon type neutrinos as they oscillate away. Where NOvA would expect to see 201 muon neutrinos if there were no oscillations, they actually see only 33 — clear evidence of oscillations.