Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2006 APS April Meeting
Saturday–Tuesday, April 22–25, 2006; Dallas, TX
Session P2: Neutrinos II |
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Sponsoring Units: DNP DPF Chair: Kevork Abazajian, Los Alamos National Laboratory Room: Hyatt Regency Dallas Landmark B |
Monday, April 24, 2006 10:45AM - 11:21AM |
P2.00001: Next generation of neutrino-less double beta decay experiments and their reach Invited Speaker: Study of the neutrino-less double beta decay is a sensitive, and likely the only practical, tool of testing whether the total lepton number is conserved or not, and consequently whether neutrinos are Majorana fermions as many particle physics models suggest. Moreover, if the neutrino-less decay is ever observed, and if one can convincingly show that the virtual exchange of light Majorana neutrinos is responsible, a unique information on the absolute neutrino mass could be deduced from the experimentally determined decay rate. In the talk I will briefly review the present status of the existing experiments and describe the next generation of proposals with $\sim $100 kg sources that should reach sensitivity to $\sim $0.1 eV effective neutrino mass and explore the so-called `degenerate' mass region as well as test the existing claim of observation of the decay. This neutrino mass range can and will be explored also by observational cosmology and/or tritium beta decay, probes that are independent on the charge conjugation properties of the neutrinos. I will also review the status of the determination of the corresponding nuclear matrix elements and their uncertainties which are an important part of the problem, needed for interpreting and planning of the experiments. In longer run, experiments with $\sim $ton size sources are envisioned that will extend the sensitivity to the effective masses to the range of 10-20 meV, and thus explore the `inverted hierarchy' neutrino mass region. Several of the $\sim $100 kg proposed experiments could be enlarged to this size, provided that the projected background suppression can be achieved. Thus, within the next decade or so, there is a realistic chance that a substantial part of the allowed neutrino mass range will be explored. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 24, 2006 11:21AM - 11:57AM |
P2.00002: Recent Results from the MINOS Experiment Invited Speaker: MINOS is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment using a neutrino beam from the Fermilab Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) facility. It is a two detector experiment with a 980 ton Near Detector at Fermilab and a 5400 ton Far Detector at a distance of 735 km in the Soudan mine in northern Minnesota. MINOS is a precision experiment to measure the oscillation parameters associated with the atmospheric neutrino mass splitting previously explored by the SuperKamiokande and K2K experiments. The experiment will also extend the existing limits on sub-dominant muon to electron neutrino oscillations and make the first neutrino/ anti-neutrino separated measurements of atmospheric neutrino oscillations. MINOS began data taking in the NuMI beam in March 2005 and has recorded data from over 1e20 protons on target. The performance of the MINOS detectors and the NuMI beam during the first year of operations will be described, and preliminary results from beam neutrinos in the Near and Far detectors are presented. This is the largest sample of neutrino interactions collected in a long baseline detector to date. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 24, 2006 11:57AM - 12:33PM |
P2.00003: KamLAND Invited Speaker: KamLAND is a one-kiloton liquid-scintillator detector sensitive to antineutrinos through inverse beta decay. The experiment, located underground in the mountains of central Japan, was designed to look for the disappearance of antineutrinos produced in nuclear power reactors at a typical baseline of 180\,km. The KamLAND collaboration made the first observation of the disappearance of reactor antineutrinos, and subsequently observed distortions of the antineutrino energy spectrum consistent with neutrino oscillation. We have made precise measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters based on the rate and energy spectrum of observed antineutrinos. KamLAND has also studied other physics topics, most notably geologically-produced antineutrinos. The collaboration is planning a detector upgrade to dramatically reduce low-energy backgrounds through purification of the liquid scintillator. This upgrade will allow sensitivity to solar neutrinos through elastic scattering interactions down to energy deposits below 300\,MeV, in particular ${}^7$Be neutrinos. These measurements will test the MSW (Mikheev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein) explanation of solar neutrino flavor change, and they will both test and constrain the solar standard model. I will summarize KamLAND physics results to date and discuss the prospects for future measurements. [Preview Abstract] |
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