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Nobel prize to F. Reines awarded in 1995 "for the detection of the neutrino''. Co-winner M. Perl "for the discovery of the tau lepton''

REINES 1956

Reines, F.; Cowan, C.L.;
The Neutrino
Nature 178 (1956) 446;

Reprinted in
(translation into Russian) Usp. Fiz. Nauk 62 (1957) 391.

Abstracts
A review of the properties of the neutrino including the results of some important new experiments by the authors. Using a very large scintillation counter near a fission reactor an upper limit of 10^-9 Bohr electron magnetons has been placed on the magnetic moment. The non-identity of the neutrino and antineutrino has again been demonstrated by measurement of the lifetime of Nd¹⁵⁰. A lower limit of 4 ´ 10¹⁸ years was obtained which is to be compared with 1.3 ´ 10¹⁵ years expected if the neutrinos are identical as proposed by Majorana and Furry. The reaction ν_e p⁺ → β⁺ n had been investigated previously using the neutrino flux from a large reactor, the target protons being supplied by a large liquid scintillator; the reaction was observed to take place but the signal/noise ratio was very small. A new experiment has been performed in which the positron annihilation pulses are detected by two scintillators in coincidence, the γ-rays following the capture of the slow neutron by cadmium in the target are detected in coincidence several microseconds later. A counting rate of 3 per hour was observed which gives a cross section of about 6 ´ 10^-44cm² which is in agreement with that predicted. A discussion of the neutrino-deuteron reaction shows interesting possibilities: a possible direct measurement of the ratio of the Gamow-Teller and Fermi coupling constants in β-decay; the existence of a bi-neutron might also be detected if such a particle exists in a bound state. (Science Abstracts, 1956, 2719. D. J. A. Prowse).

Accelerator REACTOR Detectors CNTR

Related references
More (earlier) information appears in
F. Reines and C. L. Cowan, Phys. Rev. 90 (1953) 492;
C. L. Cowan, F. Reines et al., Science 124 (1956) 103;
C. L. Cowan, F. Reines et al., Phys. Rev. 90 (1953) 493;

Reactions

anti-νe p n e+

1.8-6.0 MeV (Elab)

cs

Particles studied

	νe	ex
	anti-νe	ex

Record comments
First detection of the free neutrino.

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