DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Banned-Talk
HTML https://bannedtalk.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: General Discussion
*****************************************************
#Post#: 1193--------------------------------------------------
The Hunt For the Elusive Ghost Particles
By: Beelzeboop Date: June 13, 2020, 9:52 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.wired.com/story/the-hunt-is-on-for-elusive-ghost-particles-in-antarctica/
HTML https://www.livescience.com/antarctic-neutrino-mystery-deepens.html
HTML https://www.sciencealert.com/standard-physics-has-been-ruled-out-for-neutrino-like-particles-slipping-through-our-planet
HTML https://i.imgur.com/g5H6wAQ.jpg
Antarctic Experiment Reveals Strange 'Ghost' Particles That
Physicists Can't Explain
When physicists detected signals of high-energy neutrinos coming
from a rather unlikely direction in the cosmos, they naturally
went looking for a powerful source that might explain it.
An intense examination of the most likely origins of these more
reactive forms of 'ghost' particles has now come up
empty-handed, opening the way for more exotic speculations over
what might be behind the odd signals.
Trawling through seven years of data from the neutrino-hunting
IceCube experiment, a large team of researchers from around the
globe are now forced to admit conventional explanations for the
discovery are looking pretty weak.
Neutrinos are electron-like members of the Standard Model of
fundamental particles. Unlike electrons, they have insanely
small masses and no charge.
This slim-bodied neutrality means neutrinos don't care to stop
and chat with other particles. Atomic decay deep inside the Sun
sends torrents of them through the planet every second, with
only a fraction passing close enough to an atom to cause a
noticeable response.
To catch the rare flash of a neutrino smashing into a frozen
water molecule, the IceCube observatory uses long strings of
sensitive light-capturing equipment buried under Antarctic ice.
For nearly a decade, it has been recording hundreds of flashes
per day, building a vast database of information on the
directions and energies of neutrinos washing over Earth.
[img width=1000 height=405]
HTML https://i.imgur.com/4to3OdW.jpg[/img]
But it's not the only game in town. From an altitude of nearly
40 kilometres above the Antarctic, suspended from a helium
balloon, NASA's Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA)
captures hints of neutrinos with ridiculously high energies
smashing into atoms in the atmosphere.
It's still early days for ANITA, but already its first few
flights over the past couple of years have successfully spotted
several tell-tale flashes of the energetic particles. Strangely,
two of the signals have come not from the empty sky above, but
up through the planet itself.
For a lazy neutrino fresh from the Sun, this wouldn't be all
that surprising. But at the kinds of energies recorded by ANITA,
neutrinos become real socialites, merging with our planet's
atoms at a much higher rate to leave very few untouched.
"It's commonly said that neutrinos are 'elusive' or 'ghostly'
particles because of their remarkable ability to pass through
material without smashing into something," says astrophysicist
Alex Pizzuto from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the US.
"But at these incredible energies, neutrinos are like bulls in a
china shop – they become much more likely to interact with
particles in Earth."
Finding a couple of 'bullish' neutrinos making it all the way
through the planet demands some kind of explanation.
Of course, they could just be chance discoveries of incredibly
rare examples. Being so lucky isn't out of the question. But
it's far more likely that the particles detected had struck the
planet as part of a massive crowd.
High-energy neutrinos tend to be born in interactions between
cosmic rays and atomic nuclei, before being given a hard push by
strong magnetic fields deep out in the cosmos.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/5JsxZfe.jpg
Because of this, the researchers worked out the statistics on
how many high-energy neutrinos it would take to have a good
chance of ANITA spotting them, and dug through IceCube's data to
find potential events that could be responsible for making them
in high numbers.
"This process makes IceCube a remarkable tool to follow up the
ANITA observations, because for each anomalous event that ANITA
detects, IceCube should have detected many, many more," says
physicist Anastasia Barbano of the University of Geneva in
Switzerland.
"Which, in these cases, we didn't."
So, where to now then?
First off, it's worth keeping in mind that even the most
well-funded, professional experiments can be susceptible to
errors.
Less than a decade ago, there was a flurry of excitement over
the possibility of finding neutrinos moving faster than light …
a finding that was tested at length, before being found to be
more than likely a mistake.
The new findings are currently available on the pre-print site
arXiv.org, with a submission underway to The Astrophysical
Journal, where the results will receive greater scrutiny from
the scientific community.
But there are a few tantalising possibilities we can consider
even now, and even dare to imagine explanations outside of
established physics.
"Our analysis ruled out the only remaining Standard Model
astrophysical explanation of the anomalous ANITA events," says
Pizzuto.
"So now, if these events are real and not just due to oddities
in the detector, then they could be pointing to physics beyond
the Standard Model."
One possibility is cosmic accelerators pumping out bursts of
neutrinos at time scales too brief for scientists to catch with
current technology.
If we want to really get wild, we might even consider a role for
dark matter, or imagine new kinds of particles that act like
high-energy neutrinos but are produced in other ways.
There's a lot of room for questions, and right now our search
for neutrino secrets is still in its infancy. With so much to
learn, a lot of hope is being pinned on neutrinos providing
insight into big mysteries that could lead the way to new
physics.
IceCube and ANITA will no doubt be looking out for more of these
puzzling high-energy 'ghosts', in the hope of pushing the limits
on physics.
The pre-print paper is available at arXiv.org.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkeAszl7A0s
HTML https://www.seeker.com/videos/space-innovation/everything-we-know-about-antarcticas-ghost-particles
#Post#: 1195--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Hunt For the Elusive Ghost Particles
By: LunaC Date: June 13, 2020, 9:59 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
They will keep hunting. Neutrinos are hardly a hunt now but the
understanding is certainly lacking. Not that I claim to know
but science has obfuscated itself behind convoluted theories of
relativism. Not that there is no truth to be found. But they
built that mountain to dangerous heights. I see it all scalar.
Nuclei exist within the electron field, we exist within the
heliosphere, which exists within the influence of the galactic
core. Stretched into the subatomic or somewhere too big to
comprehend and it still all works. To infinity.
*****************************************************