1. India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)
A world-class underground laboratory to study fundamental issues in physics
Neutrinos
The INO project
Goals:
Study neutrinos from various natural and lab sources
Development of detector technology and its applications
Eventually: a centre for other studies in physics, biology, geology, etc., all which benefit from special conditions that exist deep underground
Neutrinos are tiny, neutral, elementary particles which interact with matter via the “weak force”.
The Sun produces over two hundred trillion trillion trillion neutrinos every second, and a supernova can release 1000 times more neutrinos than the Sun will produce in its 10-billion year lifetime.
Matter is almost transparent to neutrinos.
Billions of neutrinos stream through our body every second, yet perhaps only one or two of the higher energy neutrinos will scatter from you in your lifetime!
At least 3 types or “flavours” of neutrinos and anti-particles exist in nature, which have a very tiny mass whose value is still not known.
Neutrinos hold the key to several important and fundamental questions on the origin of the universe and energy production in stars.
Schematic of underground experimental cavern
Size of cavern : 150 m  22 m  30 m
Panoramic view of site near Masinagudi, Tamil Nadu
Detecting Neutrinos
In the first phase of its operation a magnetised iron calorimeter detector, weighing about 50 ktons, will be used for studying neutrinos produced from cosmic rays in Earth’s atmosphere.
Neutrinos detectors have to be situated deep underground to prevent the comparatively huge background from cosmic rays and natural radioactivity at the earth’s surface.
Neutrino detectors have to be enormous in size, as the probability of interaction with matter is so small.
First atmospheric neutrinos were detected at Kolar Gold Fields, in 1965 by a TIFR group
More Information
Resistive Plate Chamber Detectors
Resistive Plate Chambers are rugged, low-cost gas detectors extensively used in high energy and astroparticle physics experiments for the detection of charged particles.
Excellent spatial and temporal resolution leading to applications for time of flight measurements, tracking detectors and digital calorimetry due to large signal amplitudes.
RPC is composed of two parallel electrodes usually made of glass or bakelite, separated by suitable spacers.
A special gas mixture flows through the chamber, and a high voltage is applied across the electrodes uniformly.
A passing charged particle induces an avalanche, whose location can be detected on the x-y pickup strips.
A total of RPCs of dimension 2m X 2m will be needed for the INO experiment!
How does the RPC work
Signal pickup (y)
Glass
Plates
Graphite
Spacers
8 KV
Before
After
A passing charged particle induces an avalanche, which develops into a spark. The discharge is quenched when all of the locally available charge in an area  0.1 cm2 is consumed.
The discharged area recharges slowly through the high-resistivity glass plates.
Two 2 mm thick float Glass
Separated by 2 mm spacer
2 mm thick spacer
Glass plates
Complete RPC
Graphite coating on the outer surfaces of glass
Pickup strips
Large area RPC prototype
RPC gas mixture
Freon 134a : 95.5%
Isobutane : 4.2%
SF : 0.3%
A RPC detector and DAQ system
tracking cosmic ray muons