Union cabinet meeting has approved setting up of India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project in Bodi West Hills,
Tamil Nadu. This cabinet meeting was headed by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi.
Key facts about
India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project
·
It is an underground project, jointly
supported by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Department of
Science and Technology (DST).
·
It will comprise a complex of caverns
– the main cavern, which will house detector which is 130 metres long, 26
metres wide and 30 metre high.
·
Along with main cavern, there will be
two smaller caverns that will be used for setting up experiments for neutrino
double detector and dark matters.
·
This underground complex will be
approached by a 2-kms long tunnel.
·
It will host experiments such as the
neutrino-less double beta decay and the search for dark matter.
·
It also involves Inter-Institutional
Centre for High Energy Physics (IICHEP) and Iron Calorimeter Detector (ICAL).
Along with project, government has also approved the construction of a
50,000 tonne magnetised iron calorimeter detector
(ICAL). It will study the properties of the neutrino, in particular the mass
hierarchy among different types of neutrino.
Neutrino
It is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic
particle with half-integer spin. It belongs to the lepton family.
There are three types of neutrinos: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos.
