Hywel White et al re 2010 and 1995 neutrino mass findings at Los Alamos Neutrino Detector: Rich Murray 2010.07.10

[Rich Murray]

Hywel White et al re 2010 and1995 neutrino mass findings at Los Alamos
Neutrino Detector: Rich Murray 2010.07.10

I have been privileged for over 2 years to warmly appreciate many explorers
with sophisticated views at Friday Morning Group.

As a layman in all areas, I notice that science always expands and evolves,
presenting increasingly subtle paradigms that express aspects of the
evolving infinite unity that is our shared reality.

Physics has accomplished miracles with the paradigm of nested vibrating
geometric processes, invoking ever more abstract layers.

The current results use over 4 times the amount of mineral oil as in 1995 --  
doubling every 7 years.

That was the year when the exponential evolution of the Net showed up as a
reality for many citizens -- a history accelerating mutation that was
initiated in the global physics lab CERN in 1990.

Ipso facto, disruption of established social patterns, chaotic arising of
multiple networks of human harmonization.

Not disutopia, but Golden Age?

"Neutrinos, the ubiquitous daughters of the weak interaction, start their
universe-traversing lives as one of three varieties: ve, vu, or vt.
However, like ghosts with an identity crisis, these phantasmal particles
find themselves constantly morphing from one variety to another, or
oscillating, as they propagate on their long journeys."

Great Google!


http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/06/18/miniboone-results-suggest-antineutrinos-act-differently/

Symmetry Breaking blog archive,
extra dimensions of particle physics,
a joint FermiLab/SLAC  publication

Neutrinos, the ubiquitous daughters of the weak interaction, start their
universe-traversing lives as one of three varieties: ve, vu, or vt.
However, like ghosts with an identity crisis, these phantasmal particles
find themselves constantly morphing from one variety to another, or
oscillating, as they propagate on their long journeys.

Now the MiniBooNE experiment has found that antineutrinos, which should
follow the same rules as neutrinos, might oscillate in a slightly different
way.
The results seem to favor a much-debated antineutrino result obtained by the
Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector experiment in 1990.
The MiniBooNE experiment studies these oscillations by creating intense
beams of muon neutrinos and antineutrinos, and directing them at an 800-ton
sphere filled with mineral oil and located a half a kilometer away from the
beam's source.
The vast majority of these particles pass through the detector unscathed;
however, a few unlucky voyagers pass too close to a carbon nucleus.
The neutrinos, or antineutrinos, interact with carbon nuclei, giving
scientists a glimpse of the particles' true identities.
MiniBooNE counts how many muon antineutrinos oscillate into electron
antineutrinos over a relatively short distance.

A 1990 result from the LSND experiment at Los Alamos, which used a beam of
muon antineutrinos, reported electron antineutrinos appearing about 0.25
percent of the time.
The result is difficult for scientists to reconcile in a world with only
three active neutrinos.

Earlier this week, after nearly three years of running in antineutrino mode,
MiniBooNE collaborators announced that they had obtained a result consistent
with the findings from LSND.
In fact, analyzing the data in the context of a standard two neutrino mixing
model favors an LSND-like signal at a 99.4 percent confidence level.

However, model-independent tests show there is still a three percent chance
that background fluctutations could mimic the data.
While this new result is intriguing, a confirmation of LSND will require
more data.

Interpretations of the latest MiniBooNE results are complicated due to an
apparent difference between the way neutrinos and antineutrinos behave.
In a prior analysis based on four years of running with a beam of muon
neutrinos, the MiniBooNE experiment did not observe significant evidence for
muon neutrinos oscillating to electron neutrinos in the energy range
expected under the simplest models for explaining the LSND result.
However, an excess was observed at lower neutrino energies (below 475 MeV)
at a 3 sigma significance that remains unexplained.

Interestingly, the MINOS results announced earlier this week also raises the
question as to whether neutrinos and antineutrinos behave differently.

The MiniBooNE experiment continues to acquire data, and scientists on the
project are hoping to nearly double the antineutrino statistics before the
experiment finishes acquiring data within the next two years.
Future experiments, such as MicroBooNE or BooNE, a proposal to build a
second MiniBooNE detector at a near location, could help to shed more light
on these results.

This story first appeared in Fermilab Today on June 18, 2010.
Rhianna Wisniewski


http://www.physicsresearch.tk/2010/02/page/3

This is a "Physics News Update" distributed by Phillip Schewe of AIP Public
Information...
PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
A digest of physics news items by Phillip F. Schewe,
American Institute of Physics
Number 213  February 7, 1995 [hidden email]

25 FEB
Physics News Update #213 (7 Feb 1995)

INDIRECT EVIDENCE FOR NEUTRINO MASS comes from a Los Alamos experiment in
which muon antineutrinos are perhaps
transmuting into electron antineutrinos in a process called "neutrino
oscillation."

Los Alamos uses a proton beam to produce pions whose decays result in
streams of various daughter particles, including muon antineutrinos.
The pion decay process does not produce any electron antineutrinos, so any
that turn up further downstream must, the researchers believe, come from the
metamorphosis of another neutrino type, probably muon antineutrinos.

Neutrinos, regardless of their type, interact very feebly.
During the five months of data taking, the Los Alamos scientists looked for
rare interactions in which the newly minted electron antineutrino enters the
reaction vessel (filled with 180 tons of mineral oil) and collides with a
proton, creating a positron and a neutron.

The apparatus is designed to search for characteristic light (Cerenkov
radiation) from the positron; meanwhile, the 2-MeV neutron eventually
combines with a proton to make a deuteron and a gamma ray.

>From the sample size one can calculate the oscillation rate.
>From that, one can infer not a value for neutrino mass directly but rather
the difference of the squares of the masses for the two neutrino species.

Current theoretical models hold that if oscillation is occurring, at least
one of the neutrino types has mass.

According to D. Hywel White and William Louis of Los Alamos, the observed
rate of electron antineutrino interactions suggests a neutrino mass range of
0.5 and 5 eV.

The results are not statistically sufficient to settle the issue of neutrino
mass and more tests are needed.

The issue is important for particle physicists and for cosmologists, who
suspect that neutrinos with even a very small mass may play a role in
organizing matter into galaxies.


in Los Alamos Science 25

http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?25-08.pdf 12 pages

a thousand eyes: the story of LSND

Bill Louis, Vern Sandberg, and Hywel White,
as told to David Kestenbaum


http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?25-09.pdf  6 pages

the evidence for [neutrino] oscillations
[ at Los Alamos Neutrino Detector ]

Bill Louis, Vern Sandberg, Gerry Garvey,
Hywel White, Geoffrey Mills, and Rex Tayloe

http://majorana.pnl.gov/documents/Majorana_White%20Paper_2006Nov22.pdf
2006.11.22  150 pages
The Majorana Neutrinoless
Double-Beta Decay Experiment
Pre-conceptual Design Proposal


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