Neutrino versus Anti-neutrino Detection

Question

Is there a that detection method in use that can distinguish between a neutrino from its anti-neutrino?

Answer 1

Some detection methods only detect neutrinos, as opposed to antineutrinos. For instance, the original solar neutrino experiment in the Homestake mine worked on the basis of the reaction $$ \nu+{}^{37}{\rm Cl}\to {}^{37}{\rm Ar}+e^- $$ if I recall correctly. Only a neutrino can induce that reaction; an antineutrino can't.

Other experiments can detect neutrinos through multiple channels, some of which (elastic scattering off an electron, for instance) are sensitive to both $\nu,\overline\nu$ and some of which only detect one.

Answer 2

Some more neutrino-antineutrino specific reactions:

$\nu_e n \to p^+ e^-$

$\overline\nu_e p^+ \to n e^+$

$\nu_\mu n \to p^+ \mu^-$

$\overline\nu_\mu p^+ \to n \mu^+$

Answer 3

Yes, as @voix shows in his partial list, neutrinos go either to e- or mu- (or tau-) and antineutrinos go to the postive corresponding particles (conservation of lepton number).

In scattering experiments there may also be any number of hadrons produced depending on the energy of the beam.Because of weak interactions neutrino beams need trillions of neutrinos/antineutrinos impinging on the detector in order to see a reasonable number of neutrino/antineutrino interactions by the end of the experiment. Beams by construction are of one type of neutrino anyway, so it is a consistency check. Experiments can assign interactions to neutrinos or antineutrinos depending on the charge of the outgoing lepton. The charges of the leptons are found from the curvature of the tracks in the magnetic field of the setup of the experiment.

The only way one can see if a neutrino or antineutrino is produced in an interaction, is from the missing energy, because neutrinos/antineutrinos interact very weakly and cannot be detected within the apparatus. In events where all charged tracks have been measured one can also estimate the missing mass, and a neutrino/antineutrino is assigned by a fitting to a hypothesis , if the missing mass is small.

Answer 4

The simplest thing to do is to look at the charge of the final state lepton, at least for a charged current interaction (exchange of a W). Negative-charge leptons result from neutrino interactions, and positive-sign leptons result from antineutrino interactions. This is because lepton number is conserved. At least it appears to be; there are some subtleties tied up with parity violation in the Weak interactions actually masking whether lepton number conservation is real or not. But for all current practical purposes, the final state lepton sign tells you what you need to know.