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posted by on Friday October 28 2016, @01:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the if-it-doesn't-exist-we-would-need-to-create-it dept.

Sterile neutrinos (or inert neutrinos) are hypothetical particles (neutral leptons – neutrinos) that interact only via gravity and do not interact via any of the other fundamental interactions of the Standard Model. The term sterile neutrino is used to distinguish them from the known active neutrinos in the Standard Model, which are charged under the weak interaction.

From the Phys.Org article:

Dr Justin Evans, senior lecturer in particle physics at The University of Manchester, said the elusive 'sterile' neutrino, if proven to exist, has the potential to unlock the great mysteries of our Universe – even potentially explaining why we exist as we do. Researchers believe identifying this new particle would be even more significant than locating the original so-called 'God particle', the Higgs boson.

As part of an international collaboration Dr Evans has been the Physics Coordinator on the MINOS experiment, leading the experiment's physics programme. As well as leading this part of the MINOS collaboration he also coordinated the research combination with another programme called Daya Bay.

        --The MINOS experiment uses an intense beam of muon neutrinos that travels 735 km from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Chicago to the Soudan Underground Laboratory in northern Minnesota. MINOS has made world-leading measurements to study how these neutrinos disappear as they travel between the two detectors.
        --The Daya Bay experiment looks at electron antineutrinos coming from a nuclear power plant in the Guangdong province of China. The Daya Bay project measured, for the first time, one of the parameters governing neutrino oscillations.
...
"The sterile neutrino could explain the puzzle of why the neutrino is so much lighter - by orders of magnitude - than any other massive particle. It could help to explain why the universe contains more matter than antimatter, ie help to explain why we exist as we do. And, if the sterile neutrino is heavy enough, it could even be part of the solution for the dark matter puzzle."

'God Particle' is taken. How about 'Satan Particle?'


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Nerdfest on Friday October 28 2016, @03:09PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Friday October 28 2016, @03:09PM (#419861)

    "The Flanders Particle"

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @05:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @05:32PM (#419897)

    "The Flanders Particle"

    That's not what Edna says. And and she's pretty much the Springfield bicycle, so she'd know.