India's Neutrino Observatory Project Gets The Nod From Government And Rs. 1500 Crore Investment
When describing Neutrinos Frederick Reines, an American physicist famously said, "They are the most tiny quantity of reality ever imagined by a human being." The subatomic particles created from the radioactive elements' decay that lack electric charge, are now going to be under the observation of Indian scientists as a part of a huge INR 1500 Crore project called 'India-based Neutrino Observatory' or INO. The good news is that the Government of India has finally approved it and the project is being worked upon at the Pottipuram village in Tamil Nadu. A research team will study atmospheric neutrinos in a 4,300 feet deep cave and they are supposed to come up the precise measurement of neutrino mixing parameters. What's interesting is the fact that the INO project is one of India's biggest experimental particle physics projects undertaken ever. One might be reminded of the high-end 'Kolar Gold Field project' that was closed down. This is a far bigger project than that.
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai is the host institute for INO and the Government of India will be tying up with Department of Atomic Energy and Science and Technology for providing the funds for this project. The Neutrino detector has been already placed underground and once completed, the Indian Neutrino Observatory will be the house for the World's most massive magnet which will be 4X the size of the 12,500 tonne magnet present at the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.
INO Scientists building particle detector.
Apart from the INO project, Indian Government has also sanctioned the construction of a 50 kton magnetised Iron Calorimeter detector (ICAL) to study the properties of neutrinos and specifically address the issue of neutrino mass hierarchy. Apart from the ICAL detector, the INO lab will host many other interesting experiments such as the neutrino-less double beta decay experiment and a proposed experiment that will look for the evidence of Dark Matter. Yep.
Fact File on Neutrinos -
1. They come from a family of elementary particles called leptons.
2. After photons, they are the most abundant particle in the universe.
3. They are charge-less and are almost mass-less (theories exist to disprove this) & are produced inside the Sun's core as well as that of other stars. On Earth, they are produced inside the nuclear reactors.
4. If neutrinos are found to have mass, that knowledge would significantly affect our understanding of Particle Physics, Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics and Cosmology.
5. Most questions about Neutrinos are still left answered.
Lastly, it has come to the news that folks behind the INO project are all geared up after the approval and have started International scientists to take part in the high-end research project, while they continue working as a part of the LHC or Large Hadron Collider project. We believe that this is a great news for Indian engineers looking to work on mass-scale physics project while residing in India. What do you think? Share with us in comments below.
Source: <a href="https://www.ino.tifr.res.in/ino/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">INO:India-based Neutrino Observatory</a> | #-Link-Snipped-#
