[time-nuts] Neutrino timing

[Tom Van Baak]

> I am not familiar with the experiment, so I have to ask some dumb questions:

Ed,

Or, you could say "I am not familiar with the experiment, so I have
to spend a few minutes to find out for myself" ;-)

There are numerous popular articles about the issue. If you are
technically inclined read the original paper here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897
The PDF file is 
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897v1

Or start with the CERN press release:
http://public.web.cern.ch/press/pressreleases/Releases2011/PR19.11E.html

In addition you can find many details on the timing system at:
http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cngs-time-transfer/wiki

> First, I wonder how the "beam" is generated at the source, and then 

They come in bursts as you suggested.

> The next question is whether that 60 nSec or so measurement is 
> "sharp," or is it the mean value of a large, wide distribution of 

See the wonderful plots in the paper.

> The final question for now is how big is the detector? As I 

The detector is not the liquid kind you're thinking of. But it is
very large with lots of detectors and calibrated delays.

Do a google image search for: OPERA Gran Sasso detector
Several high resolution photos are:
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/OPERA-detector.jpg
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/opera.jpg
http://www.aspera-eu.org/images/stories/Media/MEDIAPICTURES/HR2/gran-sasso2.jpg

Finally this drawing nicely shows the scale too:
http://w3.iihe.ac.be/opera/detector-artistic2.jpg
(from the excellent page: http://w3.iihe.ac.be/opera/)

/tvb