If we ’re ever going to truly understand how our Universe works , we ’ll need to take lots of different measure , but measuring can be one of science ’s most difficult tasks . How , for example , do scientist measure an invisible affair that passes straight through square matter without stopping ? The innovation scientist hail up with to make this possible are often truly unbelievable — even if the mensuration made are totally look .
Today , scientists at the IceCube collaboration are announcing a relatively esoteric but central particle physics measurement : the rate at which the elusive neutrino particles interact with other particles at their highest energies . The result was consistent with physics theory . But it involve a telescope inter in a cubic kilometer of South Pole ice point down through planet Earth to assess the properties of particle produced on the other side .
Did I mention the telescope is at the South Pole ?
“ You ’re at the midsection of nowhere , the temperature is 20 - 40 below zero and the altitude is around 10,000 substructure , ” Spencer Klein , one of the study ’s many generator from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California told Gizmodo . “ In gain to being really cold-blooded , it ’s hard to respire . . . You rest in a station , modern and well-off , that ’s as much like a starship as I ’ll ever get to see . ”
You might call back that atoms are broken into subatomic particles , proton , neutrons , and electrons . But there ’s another kind of corpuscle , the neutrino , that barely interacts with regular matter at all ; unlike a baseball game that gets stopped by a wall , a neutrino can happen through the whole Earth without stopping . But they can slow down a petite bit . The physicists looked to measure the neutrino cross - segment — essentially , how likely these particles are to exchange information with the Earth ’s more common particles . It ’s like sending a shade through a bunch and observing the rate at which masses were spook , then measuring whether the spooking tired out the ghost . In this case , scientist only wanted to measure the mellow vim neutrinos , those with far more zip than anything created in particle physical science experiments like the Large Hadron Collider .
The neutrino initiate from the shower of remnant created when the Earth ’s atmosphere stops in high spirits energy particles occur in from place . The neutrinos go through Earth to IceCube — a sensing element with 5,160 optic sensing element embedded in the South Pole ’s ice . They might interact with the corpuscle in the ice and release a far less nervous particle called the mu-meson , like the screeching of the few spook people . These muon , in bit , let out a heartbeat of aristocratical illumination , detected by the sensors . The scientist calculated the hybridizing surgical incision by liken the tracks of the neutrinos coming up through the Earth ( the ones that had to interact a lot ) to those come from horizontally ( the ones that barely had to interact at all ) .
Nothing strange prove up in the measuring — it was in blood with what the main particle physics theory , the Standard Model , would have predicted . But that alone is important since it can prevail out some wackier theoretic ideas . It also manifest that the Standard Model is a pretty good hypothesis .
“ It ’s still pretty awesome , ” Deborah Harris , co - spokesperson of the MINERvA experiment told Gizmodo . Essentially , the possibility still lick for particle a thousand time more energetic than the particle used to establish it . She also liked how the experimentation built on other neutrino experiment to do its one - of - a - sort measuring . She say : “ these hombre are the only single who can appraise these high-pitched energy neutrino . ”
Other disturbed experiments will shortly join IceCube in the search for high - energy neutrinos and neutrinos from infinite like the Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope ( KM3NeT ) , which will work on a similar conception in the Mediterranean ocean . But phratry at the KM3NeT were as equally impressed , and one was happy to buzz paperland in the esteemed daybook , Nature . “ This is one of the beautiful example of what you could do if you have such a machine , ” Aart Heijboer , KM3NeT ’s deputy spokesperson told Gizmodo . “ Although the detectors are motivated by observing astronomical objects using neutrinos , you may do molecule physics as well . ”
And while the analysis is done mostly at universities , it takes a extra kind of scientist to shape on a telescope at the South Pole , “ These multitude , even if they make mistakes , they ’re motive is to rule the verity , ” said author Mark Bowen who recently published a book on IceCube titledThe Telescope in the Ice . “ They have to expect reality in the eye and not be dissipate . . . It ’s amazing what you’re able to find out when you seek to receive the truth . ”
The researchers will continue to refine their measurement — this young paper only accounted for around 10,000 of these topnotch - high - energy neutrino . They ’d care to see what actually happens when the neutrino interacts , while others at the experimentation strain to interpret where neutrinos bombard Earth from space come from .
But what aroused folks at IceCube most was the coolheaded skill that could be done with such a neutrino telescope . “ This shows that IceCube and experimentation with naturally produced neutrinos can be used to do a lot of interesting physics , ” said Klein . “ In some ways , they have capabilities beyond what you could get at accelerators because of the energies . ”
[ Nature ]
neutrinosParticle physicsPhysicsScience
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