Electron-antineutrinos are abundantly produced by the nuclear fission reactions inside the reactor cores (6 are produced in the uranium fission induced by neutrons [Way48]). A typical ~ 1 GW standard nuclear plant radiates about 5.1020 antineutrinos per second; their energy spectrum Continue Reading …
At the beginning of the 80’s, big underground detectors were built to search for proton decay, following the predictions of the grand unified theories. No decay has been observed, but, on the 23th of February 1987, two experiments, Kamiokande in Continue Reading …
Beyond atmospheric neutrinos, produced by the interactions of cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere, it was soon anticipated that violent astrophysics phenomena like active galactic nuclei could produce very high energy neutrinos as well as high energy gamma rays. First Continue Reading …
Neutrino beams From 1959, the proton synchrotrons built in Brookhaven and CERN were able to accelerate protons to ~ 30 GeV. These high energy protons bombarded beryllium targets, producing pions and kaons which subsequently decayed into neutrinos. The first neutrino Continue Reading …
In 1914, James Chadwick [Cha14] and others showed experimentally that the electron spectrum measured in beta decay was continuous instead of a single line expected in a two-body decay. This result has not been immediately accepted since it could be Continue Reading …
In 1946, Bruno Pontecorvo, then in Canada, proposed to use the inverse beta-process ( + Z → + [Z+1]) to detect the neutrinos, mentioning the famous chlorine-argon reaction (+ 37Cl →+ 37Ar) followed by the observed 37Ar decay [Pon46], and Continue Reading …
In 1985, a tritium beta decay experiment [Sim85] announced to have observed an end of beta decay spectrum compatible with the existence of a new neutrino, with a mass of 17 keV. If stable, this neutrino, to be added to Continue Reading …
In September 2011, the OPERA experiment announced to have measured the travel time of the neutrinos between their production at the output of the CERN SPS and their arrival in the OPERA detector in Gran Sasso tunnel 730 km away Continue Reading …
Henri Becquerel Becquerel was born in Paris in 1852 into a wealthy family which produced four generations of physicists. After his studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and at the École Polytechnique he worked on various subjects like Earth’s magnetic fields, Continue Reading …
This selected bibliography on neutrinos of more than 750 references has not the ambition to be exhaustive. The philosophy is : a) to be as complete as possible on the main “historical” papers; b) to quote the most important achievements Continue Reading …
