The experiments will shed light on the possibility that neutrinos have mass and exhibit the exotic property of transforming from one kind into another. Voluntary contributions from Belgium, France, Germany and Spain complete the funding for the new facility.
Neutrinos are elusive particles.
They travel at the speed of light, interact hardly at all with matter, and for many years it was believed that they have no mass. The electron neutrino and muon neutrino have both been discovered, but the tau neutrino has never been seen. However, the existence of an associated neutrino can be inferred from the known properties of the tau. Indications of this phenomenon first came from the observation of the deficit of neutrinos coming from the sun. The sun produces electron neutrinos, which perhaps are not disappearing, but transforming into other types of neutrinos that escape detection, for example muon or tau neutrinos.