An agreement between U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry and India’s Atomic Energy Secretary Sekhar Basu will pave the way for scientists from the two countries to collaborate on the development and construction of neutrino detectors.
Neutrino science projects are under way in both countries: the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility with the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment hosted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab, and at the India-based Neutrino Observatory. India’s scientists will observe neutrinos that are produced in Earth’s atmosphere to answer questions about the properties of these elusive particles. They will use a a 50,000-ton iron calorimeter, four times larger than CERN’s Compact Muon Solenoid detector’s magnet to record information about neutrinos and antineutrinos generated by cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists from more than 20 institutions are working at India’s Neutrino Observatory.
Perry said, “I am pleased to expand our partnership with India in neutrino science and look forward to making discoveries in this promising area of research.”
“We are pleased to expand our accelerator science collaboration with the U.S. to include the science for neutrinos,” Basu said. “Science knows no borders and we value our Indian scientists working hand-in-hand with our American colleagues.”
The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is a particle physics research project to primarily study atmospheric neutrinos in a 4,300 ft deep cave under Ino Peak near Theni, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The project is a multi-institute collaboration and one of the biggest experimental particle physics projects undertaken in India.
