Friends of Scientifica
Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Tamil Nadu and Sikkim Manipal
Institute of Technology, Sikkim.
Design
The primary research instrument will consist of a 50,000 ton magnetised iron particle
physics
calorimeter with
glass Resistive
Plate
Chamber (RPC)
technology
as
the sensor elements.
The ICAL design is mostly based on the monolith experiment that could not go beyond the
proposal Stage. The detector was expected to start collecting data in the year 2012. The
location of INO has attracted a lot of attention from the neutrino physics community as
the distance between INO and CERN is very close to "Magic Baseline" - a distance at
which the effect of the CP phase on the measurement of
is minimal. The project has
been hit by lack of skilled man power and opposition by environmentalists. In 2008, INO
started a graduate training programme leading to PhD Degree in High Energy Physics and
Astronomy to deal with the shortage of particle physicists.
The Primary goals of the ICAL are the following:
1.Unambiguous and more precise determination of Neutrino oscillation parameters using
atmospheric neutrinos.
2.Study of matter effects through electric charge identification, that may lead to the
determination of the unknown sign of one of the mass differences.
3.Study of charge-conjugation and charge parity (CP) violation in the leptonic sector as
well as possible charge-conjugation, parity, time-reversal (CPT) violation studies.
4.Study of Kolar events, possible identification of very-high energy neutrinos and multi-
muon events.
The ICAL detector consists of 6 centimeters (2.4 in) thick Iron plates as passive material,
with RPCs in between as active material.
A prototype of the ICAL detector with 14 layers, measuring 1 m × 1 m × 1 m is already
operational in the VECC, Kolkata. The 35 ton prototype is set up over ground to track
cosmic muons.
Location
The originally proposed site was at Singara11°32′N 76°36′E, 5.5 kilometers (3.4 mi) south-
west of Masinagudi in the Nilgiri Hills of South India. The site has been changed due to
protests from environmental groups. The INO will now be built 10 km east of Theni in
southern India at 9°58′N 77°16′ECoordinates: 9°58′N 77°16′E[6]:2 Bodi West Hills
in Theni district, Tamil Nadustate.
April, 2016