Neutrinos telescope
Physicists have established a new limit to the mass of neutrino. They may have opened a way to a new way of looking at physics.
Is the measurement more needed the maximum limit of the Mass of a neutrino.
The announcement of this team of physicists appears to be a great advance in the field of particle physics; Such an evasive subatomic particle that is often nicknamed the “ghost” of the universe.
It will be an important step towards the discovery of a Physics beyond the standard model – The main but incomplete, theory that governs the fundamental particles.
Scientists measured the mass limit of a type of neutrino, setting a new maximum 0.45 Esetrons -The previous estimate of 2022 was 0.8 Volt electrons. This new upper limit makes neutrinos about a million times lighter than the electrons.
The exact mass of neutrinos remains unknown – but determining its upper limit is a crucial milestone.
For a long time, the standard model assumed that neutrinos had no mass, but their ability to oscillate between three “flavors” when moving-neutrinos oscillation-proved otherwise (a discovery that earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015).
“We are trying to realize why we are here,” said John Wilkerson, a physicist at the University of North Carolina and co-author of the study. “And neutrinos can play a key role in this,” quotes the.
Neutrinos are generated in large numbers during nuclear reactions, From star nuclei to radioactive decomposition, but are notoriously difficult to detect.
In experience KATRIN, Scientists followed the decomposition of the tritio, a radioactive form of hydrogen. Upon disintegration, the tritio emits an electron and an antineutrine. Measuring the energy of 36 million electrons over 259 days, researchers inferred the possible mass of antineutrino.
Alexey Lokhov, physicist of the Katrin team, described the result as “The best limit in the world”underlining the potential of these data to open a “portal” to new physics.
There is more data on the way. The Katrin team aims to further tune their measurements with a 1,000 -day data collection campaign, to be completed by the end of the year.
