Fermilab | NOvA Neutrino Experiment

NOvA Neutrino Experiment

Feature

What is a neutrino?

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, a billion times more abundant than the particles that make up stars, planets and people. Unimaginably large numbers of neutrinos from the first moments of the universe are still present today.

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Research goals
The NOvA experiment is designed to answer three fundamental questions in neutrino physics:
1. Can we observe the oscillation of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos?
2. What is the ordering of the neutrino masses?
3. What is the symmetry between matter and antimatter?
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How does NOvA work?

Neutrinos rarely interact with other particles; they can pass through the entire planet as if it were empty space. In order to study such particles, scientists need to create an intense beam of them and send them continuously through a large detector for long periods of time.

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Collaboration

The NOvA collaboration is made up of 180 scientists and engineers from 28 institutions. In this photo, members of the NOvA collaboration pose during a meeting the weekend of April 24, 2009. Photo by George Joch of Argonne National Laboratory.

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Scientists suspect that neutrinos played a major role in the evolution of the universe, contributing to its mass as much as stars and planets. The NOvA experiment will study the strange properties of neutrinos, especially the elusive transition of muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos.

The experiment will begin taking data in 2013 and construction will be complete in January 2014. The first run will last six years.