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California Polytechnic State University Physics
Department
San Luis Obispo, California
Neutrino
Research at Gran Sasso National Laboratory
2009 Trip
Reports |
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Technical Information |
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Last Update:
Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 5:00 AM, U.S. Pacific Time
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About LNGS and Neutrino
Research
The CUORE project utilizes
tellurium-dioxide
crystals to study neutrinos that are naturally produced in the
universe. Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles making up
the universe. Mysterious, unseen, and very difficult to detect, neutrinos
are almost-massless particles that pass through the Earth, and human
beings, at close to the speed of light with little to no affect (that we
know of). Fifty trillion neutrinos pass through the human body every
second.
The vast
majority of neutrinos were created when the universe began with the "Big Bang" 13.7
billion years ago, but they are also produced from nuclear fusion
and radioactive
decay in living stars, like our sun, from dying stars in massive
supernova
explosions, and by nuclear power generating stations like the
Diablo
Canyon Power Plant. Neutrino research attempts to unravel
the mysteries of the laws of nature and explain how the universe works,
expanding our understanding of our solar system, the Earth and living
creatures. Neutrino research is commonly performed deep underground
to shield detection equipment from
cosmic rays and other
background
radiation that would interfere with the accuracy of desired test
results.
Cal Poly's Physics team is
supporting the "Three Towers Test" project involving the study of
"Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay". Links to detailed
information about this area of research are provided below.
Technically, CUORE and Three
Towers Test neutrino research is considered to be low-energy. This
research involves looking for an extremely rare (perhaps non-existent)
decay process which occurs around 2.5 MeV (one million electron volts).
Compare this to the proton-proton center of mass energies of the
Large
Hadron Collider at CERN (around 14 TeV -- a trillion electron volts,
over a million times the energies involved in the CUORE experiment).
Tom believes that the only high-energy physics being performed at the
Gran Sasso Lab is primarily concerned with neutrino beams being fired
from CERN interacting with the
OPERA experiment at the Gran Sasso Lab in
Hall C.
The LNGS underground facility is
comprised of three monstrous horizontal caverns and connecting roadway
service tunnels built to the side of a public highway
tunnel (photo) 6 miles long running through the 9,500 foot tall Gran Sasso
Mountain that is part of the Apennine
Mountains. Access to the lab is via this highway system
having exit and entrance tunnels as depicted in the diagram
below.
 
Click on images for
larger versions
LNGS Quick Facts
- Located within the Gran
Sasso National Park
- Above-ground
office facilities (photo) are located in Assergi (photo), population 500, 75 miles east of
Rome
- Average depth below surface (mountain coverage) of the underground lab is 4,593 feet
- Three experimental halls
A, B & C (photo) each approx 330 feet long, 65 feet wide, 59 feet
high
- Average temperature in the underground lab is about 55
degrees
- Workforce of approximately 750 scientists from 22
countries working on 15 experiments
- Main research topics of
the present programs are:
Neutrino physics with neutrinos naturally
produced in the Sun and in supernova
explosions and neutrino
oscillations with a beam from
CERN's
CNGS
- CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso project,
search for
neutrino mass in neutrinoless
double beta decay, dark matter search, and nuclear reactions
of
astrophysical interest.
- Time difference between California and Italy is 9 hours (9 AM in
California = 6 PM in Italy)
Virtual
Tour
LNGS Tour
When clicking on a particular link on the tour web page, a photo
window will appear, which is a 360-degree panorama. Place your mouse
pointer over the image and left-click & hold while slightly sliding
the mouse left and right to horizontally rotate the image. In the
list of items (links) on the left side of the lab diagram map, click on
the following interesting links:
- Percorso Guidato view from the above-ground office facility
- Snodo sale lab.
sott. view the inside of access/service tunnels
- Sala
A - LVD view of cavern Room A
- Sala B view
of cavern
Room B
- Sala C -
BOREXINO view
of cavern Room C
- interno sfera view
of the inside of the sphere portion
of BOREXINO
Technical Neutrino Research
Information
Double Beta Decay
Wikipedia
What is CUORE/Cuoricino?
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
The U.S.- CUORE Collaboration
PDF, 8 pages, 4.1 megs April 2006
CUORE PDF, 33 pages, 8.7 megs
September 2006
CUORE
Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
2007 Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Journal of Physics PDF, 4 pages
Search
for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay with CUORICINO and Prospects for
CUORE
Proceedings of the 30th
International Cosmic Ray Conference PDF, 4
pages, 1 meg
CUORICINO
and CUORE - Neutrinoless double beta decay searches with low temperature
detectors
LNGS, PDF, 22 pages, 3.4 megs
Neutrino and Particle Physics
Information
BooNE - Booster Neutrino
Experiment: About Neutrinos Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory
Electron Neutrinos and Antineutrinos HyperPhysics
HyperPhysics
Introduction
to Neutrino Astronomy John Learned, University of
Hawaii at Manoa
Neutrino
Wikipedia
Neutrino
Universe Today
Neutrino Physics at FermiLab
Neutrinos Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Neutrinos Matter PDF, 24 pages, 2.2
megs
Fermi BooNE Booster Neutrino Experiment
Particle Physics Education Sites
Supernovas:
Making Astronomical History: Neutrinos SNEWS SuperNova
Early Warning System
The Ghost Particle
PBS NOVA
What is a Neutrino? Scientific American
What's a
Neutrino? School of Physical Sciences, UC Irvine
Neutrino News
Radio Telescopes Turn the Moon into World's Largest Neutrino Detector
Popular Science, Aug. 2009
Supernova Starting Gun:
Neutrinos Focus Physical Review, Jul. 2009
South Dakota's new Homestake Research Lab Might Solve a Physics Mystery Physics Today, Jul. 2009
NASA Probe Finds Sea of Cosmic Neutrinos, New Evidence of Early Universe ScienceDaily,
Mar. 2008
Neutrino Evidence Confirms Big Bang Predictions Universe
Today, Jun. 2005
Neutrinos:
Ghosts of Matter Physics World, Jun. 2005
Neutrino Audio / Video
Podcast:
Neutrinos: A Cursed Subatomic Particle? NPR National
Public Radio, 3:48
Podcast:
The Search for Neutrinos Universe Today Astronomy Cast,
27:30
YouTube Video:
Neutrinos
Science Made Fun, 3:34
YouTube Video:
Hunting for
Neutrinos
CERN, 40:37 Excellent
info on CERN CNGS and Gran Sasso Lab
Research Laboratories
Ames National
Laboratory Ames, Iowa
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, Illinois
Brookhaven National Lab (BNL)
Upton, New York
CERN European
Organization for Nuclear Research Geneva, Switzerland
CERN
Large Hadron Collider Geneva, Switzerland
CERN Large Hadron Collider - U.S.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Batavi, Illinois
Gran Sasso National Laboratory
Assergi, Italy
KEK High Energy
Accelerator Research Organization Japan
Idaho National Laboratory Idaho Falls, Idaho
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Berkeley, California
Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory Livermore, California
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
(PNNL) Richland, Washington
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Princeton, New Jersey
Sandia National Laboratory
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake South Dakota
Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center Stanford, California
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator
Facility Newport News, Virginia
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