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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The COHERENT particle physics experiment at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has firmly established the existence of a new kind of neutrino interaction. Because neutrinos are electrically neutral and interact only weakly with matter, the quest to observe this interaction drove advances in detector technology and has added new information to theories aiming to explain mysteries of the cosmos.
"The neutrino is thought to be at the heart of many open questions about the nature of the universe," said Indiana University physics professor Rex Tayloe. He led the installation, operation and data analysis of a cryogenic liquid argon detector for neutrinos at the Spallation Neutron Source, or SNS, a DOE Office of Science User Facility at ORNL.
The study, published in Physical Review Letters, observed that low-energy neutrinos interact with an argon nucleus through the weak nuclear force in a process called coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, or CEvNS, which is pronounced "sevens." Like a ping-pong ball bombarding a softball, a neutrino that hits a nucleus transfers only a small amount of energy to the much larger nucleus, which recoils almost imperceptibly in response to the tiny assault.
Laying the groundwork for the discovery made with the argon nucleus was a 2017 study published in Science in which COHERENT collaborators used the world's smallest neutrino detector to provide the first evidence of the CEvNS process as neutrinos interacted with larger and heavier cesium and iodine nuclei. Their recoils were even tinier, like bowling balls reacting to ping-pong balls.
[...] "We're looking for ways to break the Standard Model. We love the Standard Model; it's been really successful. But there are things it just doesn't explain," said physicist Jason Newby, ORNL's lead for COHERENT. "We suspect that in these small places where the model might break down, answers to big questions about the nature of the universe, antimatter and dark matter, for instance, could lie in wait."
Journal References:
1.) D. Akimov et al. First Measurement of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering on Argon, Physical Review Letters (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.012002)
2.) D. Akimov, J. B. Albert, P. An, et al. Observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.aao0990)
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Tuesday February 02 2021, @07:24AM (2 children)
A neutrino is very small, if it even has a diameter, which is currently unclear. Even an atomic nucleus is mostly empty space, with the quarks of the protons and neutrons kept close together by the strong force. How does a point-like particle actually impact a nucleus? Are the gluons so thick that that there's a physical collision, or is the apparent collision (there is momentum transfer) an "interesting" effect of weak force interaction?
(Score: 1) by kvutza on Tuesday February 02 2021, @12:31PM
Think about particles as of clouds. While you always detect a particle at a point, it has (up to its detection) nonzero probability at a whole cloud.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 02 2021, @04:57PM
By definition, if it exists, it must be measurable. Maybe not measurable with our current tools, but measurable none the less.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2021, @11:27AM (2 children)
no pun intended.
I had to read the actual press release to get a better idea, but I won't claim I can parse the PRL itself properly.
In any case, there is a surprising lack of buzz words here, although there seems to be some overexcitement in relation to what could be achieved.
They do mention sterile neutrinos fairly confidently, and in my reading that's a fairly crackpot sentence in an otherwise nice presentation.
They specifically explain that their detectors catch slow neutrinos, which can only do weak interactions.
And then they define sterile neutrinos as neutrinos that are not affected by weak interactions.
And then they say they hope to see sterile neutrinos.
I assume I can look up the proper definition of sterile neutrinos, but I think there's a problem with the press release here whether or not the fault lies with the researchers or the writer.
Otherwise I'm excited by this, because it seems to be about experiments complementary to other experiments.
The more lines of attack against the standard model, the better.
While they seem to hope for breaking it once they decrease the error bars (and they say they can do that), I'd say that even confirming it with better error bars is a big deal.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kvutza on Tuesday February 02 2021, @12:42PM (1 child)
They see as theory says. They hope that with a greater precision (in next measurements) they'll see a discrepancy with respect to theory (well, probably will not, but the hope stays yet). And when thinking what could be a source of a prospective discrepancy (that they have not seen so far and probably will not see at all), they mention so called sterile neutrinos. Like if some of the standard neutrinos would turn to the sterile ones, they would see somewhat lesser amounts of the bumps then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2021, @01:35PM
oh, ok. thank you.