Neutrino Physics

Contact: Thierry Lasserre (thierry.lasserre@cea.fr)

Scientific goals : Neutrinos are elementary particles produced abundantly in stars, in the Earth's atmosphere and in the cores of nuclear power plants. In 2006 CEA/IRFU and CNRS/IN2P3 have decided to officially launch the construction of the Double Chooz experiment. Two identical detectors are to be installed near the Chooz nuclear power plant, in the French Ardennes, at different distances from the reactors.

LUMINEU

Neutrinoless double beta decay is a very rare nuclear transition, whose existence can provide essential information about neutrino properties like the hierarchy and the absolute mass scale. If observed, this process will prove that the lepton number conservation law can be violated and that we need to extend the Standard Model.

T2K

T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) is the world leading experiment dedicated to the study of neutrino oscillations over a long distance using µ-neutrino and µ-anti-neutrino beams. Neutrinos exist in three different types (called 'flavours'): νe, νμ and ντ. In the last fifteen to twenty years, several experiments have proven that neutrinos undergo a quantum mechanical phenomenon called 'oscillation', where neutrinos oscillate from one type to another.

Division of Electronics, Detectors and Computing for Physics (DEDIP)

Institute of Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe