BATAVIA, Illinois -- The physics community got a jolt last year when results showed for the first time that neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos, might be the odd man out in the particle world and have different masses. This idea was something that went against most commonly accepted theories of how the subatomic world works.

A result released today (August 25) from the MINOS experiment at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory appears to quell concerns raised by a MINOS result in June 2010 and brings neutrino and antineutrino masses more closely in sync.

By bringing measurements of neutrinos and antineutrinos closer together, this new MINOS result allows physicists to lessen the potential ramifications of this specific neutrino imbalance. These ramifications include: a new way neutrinos interact with other particles, unseen interactions between neutrinos and matter in the earth and the need to rethink everything known about how the universe works at the tiniest levels.

University College London Physics Professor and MINOS co-spokesperson Jenny Thomas presented this new result – the world’s best measurement of muon neutrino and antineutrino mass comparisons -- at the International Symposium on Lepton Photon Interactions at High Energies in Mumbai, India.

MINOS nearly doubled its data set since its June 2010 result from 100 antineutrino events to 197 events. While the new results are only about one standard deviation away from the previous results, the combination rules out concerns that the previous results could have been caused by detector or calculation errors. Instead, the combined results point to a statistical fluctuation that has lessened as more data is taken.

Physicists measured the differences between the squared masses between two types of neutrinos and compared them to the squared masses between two types of antineutrinos, a quantity called delta m squared. The 2010 result found, as a whole, that the range of mass difference in the neutrinos was about 40 percent less for antineutrinos, while the new result found a 16 percent difference.

Because several neutrino experiments operating and planned across the globe rely on neutrino and antineutrino measurements being the same as part of their calculations, the new MINOS result hopefully removes a potential hurdle for them.

Fermilab's accelerator complex is capable of producing intense beams of either muon antineutrinos or muon neutrinos to send to the two MINOS detectors, one at Fermilab and one in Minnesota. This capability allows the experimenters to measure the mass difference parameters. The measurement also relies on the unique characteristics of the MINOS far detector, particularly its magnetic field, which allows the detector to separate the positively and negatively charged muons resulting from interactions of antineutrinos and neutrinos, respectively.

The antineutrinos’ extremely rare interactions with matter allow most of them to pass through the Earth unperturbed. A small number, however, interact in the MINOS detector, located 735 km away from Fermilab in Soudan, Minnesota. During their journey, which lasts 2.5 milliseconds, the particles oscillate in a process governed by a difference between their mass states.

Further analysis will be needed by the upcoming Fermilab neutrino experiments NOvA and MINOS+ to close the mass difference even more. Both experiments will use an upgraded accelerator beam generated at Fermilab that will emit more than double the number of neutrinos. This upgraded beam is expected to start operating in 2013.

Source: Fermilab Website