Magnetic lens for neutrino detection?

[Duda Jarek]

Neutrinos are extremely difficult to catch because they interact extremely weakly with the matter ... but they probably have internal magnetic structure and magnetic moment - so shouldn't they interact a bit with strong EM fields?

In accelerators we use magnetic devices focusing beams of charged particles, but maybe there could be constructed analog for particles having only magnetic moment?

I know - the first problem could be that their spin direction is random - but there are ways to order it, like Stern-Gerlach experiment (... for low energy) ... ?

The other problem is that focal distance of such lens should rather depend on their energy ... but maybe there are ways to handle with such 'chromatic aberrations' ... ?

 

Let's imagine we could build such extremely weak magnetic lens for neutrino and place relatively small detector in its focal point - for some scale it should became more effective than standard detectors ...

The interesting fact is that it could have extremely long focal lengths - 1km: we could place detector under ground ... 12700 km: we could place detector on the other side of the Earth ... or much more while placing the lens on a spaceship ...

 

What do you think about it?

Is such lens doable (for low energy neutrinos)?

Additionally they should allow to say much more about neutrinos than standard detectors ...

[swansont]

Neutrinos are extremely difficult to catch because they interact extremely weakly with the matter ... but they probably have internal magnetic structure and magnetic moment

 

Why should it have an internal structure?

 

It does have a magnetic moment, but AFAIK it's proportional to the mass.

 

edit: this ArXiv paper puts the upper limit at less than 10^-10 Bohr magnetons, but greater than 10^20

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0601113

 

Wikipedia claims they should be no larger than 10^-14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(physics)#Magnetic_moments

Edited April 19, 2010 by swansont

[Duda Jarek]

Electromagnetic properties like charge of magnetic momentums implicate some forces reverse proportional to some power of distance - so accordingly to such simplified picture, there appear infinities inside/near particles - so at least they are some kind of singularities of EM field - I would call it itself (a part?) of their internal structure, don't you?

 

Returning to the topic, as I've written there - I totally agree that such interactions would be extremely small - but such lens for neutrinos with focal distance of e.g. millions kilometers could be still useful ...

For example to finally determine their magnetic moment, what as you've suggested - could be even impossible with used today detection approach ...