Catcher of elusive neutrinos takes shape at Fermilab

Lisa Grossman, reporter

Huge plastic blocks were being set in place this week to help catch some of the most elusive, mysterious particles known.

The NuMI Off-Axis Neutrino Appearance experiment (NOvA) neutrino detector in Ash River, Minnesota, is set to start taking data in 2013. The experiment will study the properties of neutrinos, near-massless elementary particles that are notoriously hard to study because they can slip through hundreds of kilometres of rock like ghosts through a wall.

The particles come in three "flavours" - electron, muon, and tau - but they can shapeshift between them as they travel. NOvA will help determine which neutrino flavour is the heaviest, and will provide data to help figure out why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.

Each of the detector's 28 blocks, such as the one being set in place in the picture, measures 15.5 by 15.5 by 2.1 metres and is made up of 384 plastic PVC modules. When all the blocks are in place, they will be filled with a "scintillating" liquid that will give off light whenever a neutrino interacts with it. The neutrinos will have travelled about 800 kilometres from the Fermilab National Accelerator Lab in Batavia, Illinois, to the detector, which is near the US-Canada border.

"Everyone's been watching to see which experiment will make the next big step in uncovering the properties of neutrinos," said Mark Messier of Indiana University. "The NOvA experiment should be it."

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/233019b3/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C0A90Ccatcher0Eof0Eelusive0Eneutrinos0Et0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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