Experimental Highlights from Gran Sasso Laboratory

Abstract

The Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the INFN has given important contributions to the discovery of the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations with experiments both on electron neutrinos from the Sun and muon neutrinos indirectly produced by cosmic rays interactions in the atmosphere. Other experiments in the laboratory give the best limits on electron neutrino effective Majorana mass with two different isotopes. We appear to have entered a new physics domain in which the study of neutrinos may lead us to discover new phenomena, corresponding to energy scales by much higher than those of the present accelerators. Underground laboratories are showing their relevance complementary to the colliders for the advance of basic physics. The physics program at the Gran Sasso Laboratory that we are defining will be focussed on neutrino physics with a complementary set of experiments on the muon neutrino beam from CERN (CNGS project), on solar neutrinos, on atmospheric neutrinos and on neutrinos from Supernova explosion. The relevant thermonuclear cross-sections will be measured. The Majorana vs. Dirac nature of electron neutrinos will be explored with the search for neutrino-less double beta decays in different isotopes.