Neutrino Oscillations

Matthew Shipton, Phil Manley and Ben Moseley

November 8, 2010

There is a large amount of empirical evidence for neutrino oscillations. Neu-

trino oscillations do, however, imply that neutrinos have a non-zero mass which
is, unfortunately, contrary to the standard model as it was. It has required an
adjustment to particle physics as a whole.
Evidence for neutrino oscillations has been found:

• In solar neutrino oscillations. In the late 1960s a deficit was observed

in the flux of solar based oscillations. This lead to the Solar Neutrino
problem and much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as it represented a
major discrepancy between the theoretical models of the sun. There
were even suggestions that it meant that the nuclear fusion processes at
the centre of the sun had shut down (since it takes thousands of years for
the heat energy to move from the core to the outer surfaces). This deficit
was confirmed by numerous other experiments in years since.
• Atmospheric neutrino oscillation. This involves measuring the ratio
of the flux of muon to electron flavour neutrinos generated by cosmic rays
incident on the upper atmosphere. The flux of muon neutrinos from the
far side of earth was measured by the Super Kamiokande experiment as
being half of what was measured from neutrinos directly above. Since
neutrinos are weakly interacting only a very small number of neutrinos
should be absorbed by the earth (the mean free path of electrons in lead
is 22 lightyears. Therefore the neutrinos must oscillate into something
we cannot detect.
How were these neutrinos detected?
A 18 m diameter geodesic array of 9,500 photomultiplier tubes surrounds
the heavy water to detect Cerenkov radiation from the neutrino interaction
which dissociates deuterium e.g.: υe + d = p + p + e−