ICARUS (experiment)

ICARUS ( Imaging Cosmic And Rare Underground english ) signal is a physical experiment for the study of neutrinos. It is located in the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso ( LNGS ).

The experiment is the development of a 1977 proposed by Carlo Rubbia Teilchendetektortyps. It is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber ( LAr - TPC). You should combine the advantages of a bubble chamber with an electronic readout method. In the course of the ICARUS program, several detectors were built. 2010, the ICARUS - T600 detector was taken as the largest detector of its kind in operation in the LNGS with 760 tons of liquid argon. For the investigation of neutrino oscillations and related fundamental questions neutrinos from astronomical sources and CNGS neutrinos (which are also used by the OPERA experiment ) were measured. The CNGS neutrinos are sent here from the Super Proton Synchrotron at CERN from a distance of about 730 km. That's why the names CNGS1 ( OPERA ) and CNGS2 ( ICARUS ) are used.

The CNGS measurements were also significant in that the OPERA group announced the measurement of supposedly faster than light neutrinos in September and November 2011. The ICARUS group subsequently published a study indicating that the energy spectrum of neutrinos is not compatible with superluminal velocity. This was based on a paper by Cohen / Glashow (2011), according to which of superluminal neutrinos intense bremsstrahlung would have to go out for the purposes of the Cherenkov effect ( vacuum - Cherenkov effect). In March 2012, the ICARUS group also published a direct measurement of the speed of seven CNGS neutrinos. This result is consistent within the measurement accuracy with the speed of light. In August 2012, a more accurate measurement was presented, also in accordance with the speed of light. For details see the measurements of neutrino speed.