Underground lab for neutrino study could come up in Nilgiris

The project includes construction of an underground laboratory and a massive 50 kilo-tonne magnetised iron neutrino detector. The underground laboratory will have to be accessed through a 2-km-long access tunnel.

INO is one of the largest basic science projects that has been proposed in the country. It is a purely research oriented project with a strong emphasis on the development of various particle detectors.

The primary goal of the laboratory is the study of neutrinos from various natural and laboratory sources. It is envisaged that such an underground facility will in future develop into a centre for other studies as well, in physics, biology, geology, and others—all of which will exploit the special conditions that exist deep underground, said Mondal.

Neutrinos are elementary or fundamental particles that are electrically charge-neutral. Although originally thought to be mass-less, recent experiments indicate that neutrinos have mass although their exact masses are currently unknown.

The INO detector during its first phase of operation will study the neutrinos and anti-neutrinos produced by interactions of cosmic rays in the earth’s atmosphere. In the second phase, the large magnetised INO detector can be used as an end-detector for a future possible high-energy neutrino beam from an accelerator thousands of kilometres away, an option is already being vigorously pursued worldwide.

Mondal said detectors developed by particle physicists over the years have found wide application in areas such as medical imaging, material science, industrial control and in geological survey.