8/12/2019 An Elusive Detector for an Elusive Particle - The Hindu

1/2

3/31/2014 An elusive detector for an elusive particle - The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-elusive-detector-for-an-elusive-particle/article5851884.ece 1/2

Opinion Comment

n elusive detector for an elusive particle

asudevan Mukunth

he delay of a go-ahead from the Cabinet for an indigenously designed neutrino detector is demoralising for scientists because it coulurninvestors away

In the late 1990s, a group of Indian physicists pitched the idea of building a neutrino observatory in the country. Theroduct of that vision is the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) slated to come up near Theni district in Tamil

Nadu, by 2020. According to the 12th Five Year Plan report released in October 2011, it will be built at a cost ofRs.1,323.77 crore, borne by the Departments of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Science & Technology (DST).

By 2012, these government agencies, with the help of 26 participating institutions, were able to obtain environmentallearance, and approvals from the Planning Commission and the Atomic Energy Commission. Any substantial flow ofapital will happen only with Cabinet approval, which has still not been given after more than a year.

If this delay persists, the Indian scientific community will face greater difficulty in securing future projects involvingoreign collaborators because we cant deliver on time. Worse still, bright Indian minds that have ideas to test will

rioritise foreign research labs over local facilities.

Big science is international

his month, the delay acquired greater urgency. On March 24, the Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing,nnounced that it was starting construction on Chinas second major neutrino research laboratory the Jiangmen

Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), to be completed at a cost of $350 million (Rs. 2,100 crore) by 2020.

part from the dates of completion, what Indian physicists find more troubling is that, once ready, both INO andUNO will pursue a common goal in fundamental physics. Should China face fewer roadblocks than India does, oureighbour could even beat us to some seminal discovery. This is not a jingoistic concern for a number of reasons.

ll big science conducted today is international in nature. The worlds largest scientific experiments involvearticipants from scores of institutions around the world and hundreds of scientists and engineers. In this paradigm,

t is important for countries to demonstrate to potential investors that theyre capable of delivering good results onime and sustainably. The same paradigm also allows investing institutions to choose whom to support.

India is a country with prior experience in experimental neutrino physics. Neutrinos are extremely elusiveundamental particles whose many unmeasured properties hold clues about why the universe is the way it is.

In the 1960s, a neutrino observatory located at the Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka became one of the worlds first

http://www.thehindu.com/http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/http://www.thehindu.com/

8/12/2019 An Elusive Detector for an Elusive Particle - The Hindu

2/2

3/31/2014 An elusive detector for an elusive particle - The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-elusive-detector-for-an-elusive-particle/article5851884.ece 2/2

xperiments to observe neutrinos in the Earths atmosphere, produced as a by-product of cosmic rays colliding withts upper strata. However, the laboratory was shut in the 1990s because the mines were being closed.

However, Japanese physicist Masatoshi Koshiba and collaborators built on this observation with a larger neutrinoetector in Japan, and went on to make a discovery that (jointly) won him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002. If

Indian physicists had been able to keep the Kolar mines open, by now we could have been on par with Japan, whichosts the world-renowned Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory involving more than 900 engineers.

Importance of time, credibility

In 1998, physicists from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, were examining a mathematical

arameter of neutrinos called theta-13. As far as we know, neutrinos come in three types, and spontaneously switchrom one type to another (Koshibas discovery).

he frequency with which they engage in this process is influenced by their masses and sources, and theta-13 is anngle that determines the nature of this connection. The IMSc team calculated that it could at most measure 12. In

2012, the Daya Bay neutrino experiment in China found that it was 8-9, reaffirming the IMSc results and drawingttention from physicists because the value is particularly high. In fact, INO will leverage this largeness tonvestigate the masses of the three types of neutrinos relative to each other.

So, while the Indian scientific community is ready to work with an indigenously designed detector, the delay of a go-head from the Cabinet becomes demoralising because we automatically lose time and access to resources fromotential investors.

This is why were calling it an India-based observatory, not an Indian observatory, because we seek foreign

ollaborators in terms of investment and expertise, says G. Rajasekaran, former joint director of IMSc, who isnvolved in the INO project.

On the other hand, China appears to have been both prescient and focussed on its goals. It purchased companiesanufacturing the necessary components in the last five years, developed the detector technology in the last 24onths, and was confident enough to announce completion in barely six years. Thanks to its Daya Bay experiment

olding it in good stead, JUNO is poised to be an international collaboration, too. Institutions from France, Germany,Italy, the U.S. and Russia have evinced interest in it.

Beyond money, there is also a question of credibility. Once Cabinet approval for INO comes through, it is estimatedhat digging the vast underground cavern to contain the principal neutrino detector will take five years, and thessembly of components, another year more. We ought to start now to be ready in 2020.

Because neutrinos are such elusive particles, any experiments on them will yield correspondingly unsure results thatill necessitate corroboration by other experiments. In this context, JUNO and INO could complement each other.Similarly, if INO is delayed, JUNO is going to look for confirmation from experiments in Japan, South Korea and theU.S.

It is notable that the INO laboratorys design permits it to also host a dark-matter decay experiment, in essenceccommodating areas of research that are demanding great attention today. But if what can only be called an undueelay on the governments part continues, we will again miss the bus.

vasudevan.m@thehindu.co.in

Keywords: India-based Neutrino Observatory, DAE, DST, Neutrino observatory, JUNO