India-based Nutrino Observatory project awaits PMO approval

The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), an ambitious basic science research project spearheaded by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and involving 30 research institutions across the country, being set up in Theni district of Tamilnadu, is awaiting final nod from the prime minister's office (PMO), Naba K Mondal, chief of the INO project, said.

Set up at a cost of Rs1,500 crore, the project intends to study the properties of atmospheric neutrinos through an underground lab some 1,300 metres below ground near Pottipuram village of Theni district.

The initial goal of INO is to study neutrinos and the precise measurement of their mixing parameters.

Neutrinos are fundamental particles belonging to the lepton family. They come in three flavours, one associated with electrons and the others with their heavier cousins the muon and the Tau.

According to standard model of particle physics, neutrinos are mass less. However recent experiments indicate that these charge-neutral fundamental particles have finite but small mass which is unknown. They oscillate between flavours as they propagate. Determination of neutrino masses and mixing parameters is one of the most important open problems in physics today, according to INO.

"We have done all the pre-approval work such as fencing, constructing basic necessary buildings at Madurai. But the first step towards the main project needs PMO approval and that's what we have been waiting for," Mondal said.

Mondal was in Chennai to present a paper on the INO project at the 80th annual meet of Indian Academy of Sciences, which concluded on Saturday.

The proposed INO comprises two underground laboratory caverns with a rock cover of more than 1,200 metres all around to house detectors and control equipment, for which a two km access tunnel would be driven under a mountain, according to the INO web site.

The project also involves construction of associated surface facilities at Pottipuram in Bodi West hills of Theni district of Tamil Nadu, besides construction of an Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector for studying neutrinos, consisting of 50,000 tonnes of magnetised iron plates arranged in stacks with gaps in between where resistive plate chambers (RPCs) would be inserted as active detectors, the total number of 2m X 2m RPCs being around 29,000.

Besides the project involves the setting up of a National Centre for High Energy Physics in Madurai for the operation and maintenance of the underground laboratory, human resource development besides detector R&D along with its applications.

The underground laboratory, consisting of a large cavern of size 132m X 26m X 20m and several smaller caverns, will be accessed by a 2,100 metre long and 7.5 m wide tunnel.