Research in Experimental Neutrino Physics

实验中微子物理研究

• 批准号: 1506373
• 负责人: Edward Blucher
• 金额: $ 51万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2021-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1506373&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Experimental; Neutrino; Physics

Understanding the origin of the observed matter - antimatter asymmetry in the universe is one of the primary goals of physics and cosmology. One potential explanation for the asymmetry requires the neutrino be its own antiparticle, meaning that the neutrino and antineutrino are the same particle. If the neutrino has this property it would show that the neutrino gets its mass in a fundamentally different way than all other particles, and help explain the absence of antimatter in the universe. Neutrinoless double beta decay is the only practical way to establish if the neutrino is its own antiparticle. This award will support the PI and his group in a search for neutrinoless double beta decay using the SNO+ detector in an operating mine in Sudbury Ontario. SNO+ is a multipurpose neutrino experiment whose primary goal is a search for neutrinoless double beta decay using tellurium (Te) dissolved in the liquid scintillator. SNO+ will also a have broad program of neutrino physics including measurements of solar neutrinos, nucleon decay, reactor neutrinos, geo-neutrinos, and detection of neutrinos from a supernova should one occur. The SNO+ benefits from a high mass of isotope and several other advantages. If the background levels are as anticipated, the SNO+ technique (i.e., using a large liquid scintillator detector) could provide an extremely cost-effective way to cover a wide range of effective Majorana masses.

了解宇宙中观测到的物质-反物质不对称的起源是物理学和宇宙学的主要目标之一。对这种不对称性的一种可能的解释是中微子是它自己的反粒子，这意味着中微子和反中微子是同一种粒子。如果中微子具有这种特性，它将表明中微子获得质量的方式与所有其他粒子根本不同，并有助于解释宇宙中没有反物质的原因。中微子双衰变是确定中微子是否是自身反粒子的唯一可行方法。该奖项将支持PI和他的团队在安大略省萨德伯里的一个正在运行的矿山中使用SNO+探测器寻找中微子双β衰变。SNO+是一个多用途中微子实验，其主要目标是利用溶解在液体闪烁体中的碲（Te）寻找无中微子双β衰变。SNO+还将有一个广泛的中微子物理项目，包括测量太阳中微子、核子衰变、反应堆中微子、地球中微子，以及探测来自超新星的中微子（如果发生的话）。SNO+受益于高质量的同位素和其他几个优势。如果背景水平如预期的那样，SNO+技术（即使用大型液体闪烁体探测器）可以提供一种极具成本效益的方法来覆盖大范围的有效马约拉纳质量。