MiniBooNE

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MiniBooNE is an experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to observe neutrino oscillations (BooNE is an acronym for Booster Neutrino Experiment ).

A neutrino beam, which consists mainly of muon neutrinos, is directed at a detector that contains 800 tons of mineral oil and is equipped with 1,280 photomultipliers . An excess of electron neutrino events in the detector would support the interpretation of the neutrino oscillation of the LSND result.

Story and motivation

The observation of solar neutrinos and atmospheric neutrinos are indications of neutrino oscillations . These assume that neutrinos have a mass other than zero . Data from the LSND at Los Alamos National Laboratory are controversial because they are not compatible with the oscillation parameters of other neutrino experiments under the Standard Model . Either the standard model has to be extended or one of the experimental results has to have a different explanation. In addition, the KARMEN experiment in Karlsruhe examined a region similar to the LSND experiment. There was no sign of neutrino oscillations, but this experiment was less sensitive than the LSND experiment. However, both are compatible with one another within the scope of the error tolerances.

Cosmological data indirectly limit the mass of sterile neutrinos . But that is very model-dependent. Thus, m s <0.26 eV (0.44 eV) was estimated at 95% (99.9%) confidence . However, the cosmological data within models can be reconciled with various assumptions.

MiniBooNE was designed to verify or falsify the disputed LSND result in a controlled environment. The first results were available at the end of March 2007 and showed no evidence of the oscillation from the muon neutrino to the electron neutrino in the energy ranges of the LSND experiment. This refutes the interpretation of the LSND experiment as a simple 2-neutrino oscillation. The MiniBooNE collaboration is currently carrying out further analyzes of their data. There are first indications for the existence of the sterile neutrino . It is interpreted by some physicists as an indication of the presence of bulk or Lorentz injury . To investigate this, some members of the MiniBooNE team have teamed up with other scientists in a new collaboration to design a new experiment called MicroBooNE .

Web links

credentials

  1. ^ The Karlsruhe Rutherford Medium Energy Neutrino Experiment. Accessed February 2, 2018 .
  2. ↑ S. Dodelson, A. Melchiorri, A. Slosar: Is cosmology compatible with sterile neutrinos? . In: Physical Review Letters . 97, 2006, p. 04301. arxiv : astro-ph / 0511500 . doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevLett.97.041301 .
  3. ↑ G. Gelmini, S. Palomares-Ruiz, and S. Pascoli: Low reheating temperature and the visible sterile neutrino . In: Physical Review Letters . 93, 2004, p. 081302. arxiv : astro-ph / 0403323 . doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevLett.93.081302 .
  4. ^ AA Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration): A Search for Electron Neutrino Appearance at the Δ m 2 ~ 1 eV 2 Scale . In: Physical Review Letters . 98, 2007, p. 231801. arxiv : 0704.1500 . doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevLett.98.231801 .
  5. ^ M. Alpert: Dimensional Shortcuts . In: Scientific American . August 2007. Retrieved July 23, 2007.
  6. ↑ H. Päs, S. Pakvasa, TJ Weiler: Shortcuts in extra dimensions and neutrino physics . In: AIP Conference Proceedings . 903, 2007, p. 315. arxiv : hep-ph / 0611263 . doi : 10.1063 / 1.2735188 .
  7. ↑ T. Katori, VA Kostelecky, R. Tayloe: Global three-parameter model for neutrino oscillations using Lorentz violation . In: Physical Review . 74, 2006, p. 105009. arxiv : hep-ph / 0606154 . doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevD.74.105009 .
  8. ^ M. Alpert: Fermilab Looks for Visitors from Another Dimension . In: Scientific American . September 2008. Retrieved September 23, 2008.