Confirm that neutrinos have mass
2006/06/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
In the United States, a gigantic investigation is underway to study the properties of neutrino. Thanks to this project, called MINOS, the researchers have confirmed that neutrinos have mass.
The MINOS project has used particle accelerators and neutrino detectors to carry out research. These devices are located in the underground, 735 km away. The particle accelerator generates and projects neutrinos in a tunnel of one kilometer and a quarter of length. There are three types of neutrinos and when crossing the earth's crust the neutrinos are transformed into another type. Thus, comparing the neutrinos that leave the particle accelerator with those that arrive at the detector, you can know how many neutrinos have modified their character. The difference in mass between two types of neutrino has been calculated and it has been proven that this difference is 0.00001% of the electron mass. Although the third type of neutrino has never been measured, its existence is theoretically demonstrated and expect it to be detected through the MINOS project.
The neutrino does not interact with the normal mass. However, in the universe there are many neutrinos created by stars and nuclear processes, from which information about the creation of the universe could be obtained.
