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Concept
Neutrino astronomy
Summary
Neutrino astronomy is the branch of astronomy that observes astronomical objects with neutrino detectors in special observatories. Neutrinos are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the Sun or high energy astrophysical phenomena, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms in the atmosphere. Neutrinos rarely interact with matter, meaning that it is unlikely for them to scatter along their trajectory, unlike photons. Therefore, neutrinos offer a unique opportunity to observe processes that are inaccessible to optical telescopes, such as reactions in the Sun's core. Neutrinos can also offer a very strong pointing direction compared to charged particle cosmic rays.
Since neutrinos interact weakly, neutrino detectors must have large target masses (often thousands of tons). The detectors also must use shielding and effective software to remove background signal.
Neutrinos were first recorded in 1956 by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines in an experiment employing a nearby nuclear reactor as a neutrino source. Their discovery was acknowledged with a Nobel Prize for physics in 1995.
This was followed by the first atmospheric neutrino detection in 1965 by two groups almost simultaneously. One was led by Frederick Reines who operated a liquid scintillator - the Case-Witwatersrand-Irvine or CWI detector - in the East Rand gold mine in South Africa at an 8.8 km water depth equivalent. The other was a Bombay-Osaka-Durham collaboration that operated in the Indian Kolar Gold Field mine at an equivalent water depth of 7.5 km. Although the KGF group detected neutrino candidates two months later than Reines CWI, they were given formal priority due to publishing their findings two weeks earlier.
In 1968, Raymond Davis, Jr. and John N. Bahcall successfully detected the first solar neutrinos in the Homestake experiment.
Official source
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