Goals of BooNE
BooNE's primary goal is to investigate the neutrino
oscillation signal reported by the Los Alamos Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) experiment.
In 1995, the LSND collaboration presented strong evidence for the oscillation of muon
anti-neutrinos into electron anti-neutrinos. These results led to mass-squared differences around
1 eV2 -- much larger than those observed by
atmospheric and solar neutrino oscillation experiments.
The LSND measurement remains to be confirmed. If BooNE confirms this signal, significant changes
would be demanded of our current model for understanding the building blocks of nature. In particular, a BooNE oscillation result
would tell us that it is very likely that nature contains at least four different types of neutrinos, at least one of which
would be almost totally non-interacting (or sterile). Ruling out the LSND signal would be an important result as well,
because it would settle a persistent question in neutrino physics and move forward this important subfield of
particle physics.
The BooNE collaboration will also explore other physics topics, from the fundamental
understanding of neutrino interaction probabilities (cross-sections) to more exotic matters, such as neutrinos from supernovae and
the neutrino magnetic moment.
Learn more about the LSND Experiment.
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