On Thursday, scientists revealed the most accurate measurements yet neutrino, which reduced the maximum possible weight of the scary stains of matter that penetrate our universe.
Result, Published In the magazine Science does not define the exact weight of neutrino, only its upper limit. However, findings help to tell physics to find out what is happening to the so-called standard model, their best-if the incomplete-theory of laws that rule the subatomical empire. One way that physicists know that it is not entirely accurate is that it suggests that neutrino should have no matter at all.
At the Grander Scales, learn more about neutrins, it will help cosologists fill their ever -foggy image of the universe, including how the galaxy grouped together and what affects the expansion of the universe from the Big Bang.
“We are looking to try to understand why we are here,” said John Wilkerson, physicist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the author of the new study. “And that’s something that neutrina could have a key role.”
Physicists know a few things about neutrins. They are fertile across the universe, created by virtually atomic cores together or tearing. However, they carry no electric charge and are notorious to detect.
Neutrinos also come in three types that physicists describe as flavors. And strangely, they turn from one taste to another, when they move in space and time, a discovery recognized by the Nobel Price in Physics in 2015. The basic mechanism that allows these transformations have realized, realized physics, which means that neutrinos must have some matter.
But just. Neutrinos are fictionally light and physics do not know why.
Uncovering the exact material values of neutrinos could lead to a “portal” to new physics, said Alexey Lokhov, scientist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. “For now, the best limit is in the world,” he said about measuring his team.
Dr. Lokhov and his colleagues used Karlsruhe Tritium neutrino or Katrin, experimenting to narrow the mass of neutrinos. At one end of the 230 feet long device, it was a source of Tritia, a heavier version of hydrogen with two neutrons in the core. Because tritium is unstable, it extends into helium: one neutron converts into a proton that spits an electron in this process. Antineutrino, an antimatter twin neutrino, also spits. Both should have the same matter.
The weight of the original tritium is divided between the break -up products: helium, electrons and antineutrino. Neither neutrinos nor antineutrins can be detected directly, but the sensor at the other end of the experiment recorded 36 million electrons, more than 259 days, a shed -crumbling tritium. By measuring the electron movement energy, they could indirectly derive the maximum possible weight for antineutrino.
They found that this value is not more than 0.45 electronvolt, in the units of the mass used particle physics, a million times lighter than electron.
The upper limit on the mass was measured for only one taste of neutrino. Dr. Wilkerson, however, said that nailing the mass of one allows to calculate the rest.
The latest measurement pushes the possible weight of neutrinum lower than previous limit Set in 2022 cooperation with Katrin, no more than 0.8 electronvolts. It is also almost twice as accurate.
Elise Nitski, a physicist at the University of Washington, who did not participate in work, appreciated the careful efforts of the Katrin team.
“It’s really just the Tour de Force,” she said about the experiment and discovery. “I have full confidence in their result.”
The Katrin team is working on an even stricter boundary on a neutrino mass of 1,000 days of data that expects to collect by the end of the year. This will give physicists even more electrons to measure, leading to a more accurate measurement.
Other experiments will also contribute to a better understanding of neutrino, including Project 8 In the Seattle and an experiment with a deep underground neutrinum, it spreads over two physical devices in the Midwest.
Astronomers studying the structure of the universe in general, which is assumed that they are influenced by a huge collection of neutrinos flooding universe, have their own measurement of maximum particle weight. According to Dr. Wilkerson, however, the boundaries set by astronomers staring into emptiness disagree with what particle physics count in the laboratory because they are exploring the subatomical world.
“Something really interesting is happening,” he said. “And the probable solution will be physics beyond the standard model.”
