Beta Beams can be used to explore the nature of the neutrino: the mass differences and the flavour content, the character of the mass spectrum and the possibility of CP violation in the lepton sector. CP violation is of particular important since it may be related to leptogenesis and hence to our very existence in this universe!
There are several ways to produce neutrino beams that can be aimed at far away detectors where the neutrinos interact and give signatures of their properties. There are “classical” neutrino beams, already giving results, at several places around the world. However, these facilities are not powerful enough to measure some important properties of the neutrino, like CP violation. In this talk we will describe another possible way to produce high intensity neutrino beams that are pure electron neutrino or pure electron anti-neutrino, namely “Beta Beams”. We will describe the principles, the accelerator facility that are needed and the physics goal. We will also give some information on the possibilities to build such a facility as well as some comparisons with other proposed facilities for future neutrino exploration.
Beta Beam developments are done within a European collaborative project, EUROnu, in which Legnaro plays a significant role.
