MINOS

Both MINOS detectors are steel-scintillator sampling calorimeters made out of alternating planes of magnetized steel and plastic scintillators.

To produce the NuMI beamline, 120 GeV Main Injector proton pulses hit a water-cooled graphite target.

The resulting interactions of protons with the target material produce pions and kaons, which are focused by a system of magnetic horns.

On 29 July 2006, the MINOS collaboration published a paper giving their initial measurements of oscillation parameters as judged from muon neutrino disappearance.

[10] In 2011, the above results were updated again, using a more than double data sample (exposure of 7.25×1020 protons on target) and improved analysis methodology.

[11] In 2010 and 2011, MINOS reported results according to which there is a difference in the disappearance and consequently the masses between antineutrinos and neutrinos, which would violate CPT symmetry.

[18] The MINOS far detector is also able to observe a reduction in cosmic rays caused by the Sun and the Moon.

Front face of the MINOS far detector. On the left is the control room and on the right is a mural by Joseph Giannetti .
MINOS service building at Fermilab, the entrance to the underground MINOS hall that hosts the near detector. [ 6 ]
NuMI Target Hall (left), the starting point of the NuMI tunnel with the Main Injector in the background. [ 7 ]