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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Source:https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/a-new-map-of-the-universe-painted-with-cosmic-neutrinos-20230629\/#comments<\/a><\/br> Neutrinos offer rare clues that a more complete theory of particles must supersede the 50-year-old set of equations known as the Standard Model. This model describes elementary particles and forces with near-perfect precision, but it errs when it comes to neutrinos: It predicts that the neutral particles are massless, but they aren\u2019t \u2014 not quite.<\/p>\n Physicists discovered in 1998 that neutrinos can shape-shift between their three different types; an electron neutrino emitted by the sun can turn into a muon neutrino by the time it reaches Earth, for example. And in order to shape-shift, neutrinos must have mass \u2014 the oscillations only make sense if each neutrino species is a quantum mixture of three different (all very tiny) masses.<\/p>\n Dozens of experiments have allowed particle physicists to gradually build up a picture of the oscillation patterns of various neutrinos \u2014 solar, atmospheric, laboratory-made. But cosmic neutrinos originating from AGNs offer a look at the particles\u2019 oscillatory behavior across vastly bigger distances and energies. This makes them \u201ca very sensitive probe to physics that is beyond the Standard Model,\u201d said Carlos Arg\u00fcelles\u2013<\/em>Delgado<\/a>, a neutrino physicist at Harvard University who is also part of the sprawling IceCube collaboration.<\/p>\n Cosmic neutrino sources are so far away that the neutrino oscillations should get blurred out \u2014 wherever astrophysicists look, they expect to see a constant fraction of each of the three neutrino types. Any fluctuation in these fractions would indicate that neutrino oscillation models need rethinking.<\/p>\n Another possibility is that cosmic neutrinos interact with dark matter as they travel, as predicted by many dark-sector models<\/a>. These models propose that the universe\u2019s invisible matter consists of multiple types of nonluminous particles. Interactions with these dark matter particles would scatter neutrinos with specific energies and create a gap<\/a> in the spectrum of cosmic neutrinos that we see.<\/p>\n Or the quantum structure of space-time itself can drag on the neutrinos, slowing them down. A group based in Italy recently argued in Nature Astronomy<\/em><\/a> that IceCube data shows hints of this happening, but other physicists have been skeptical<\/a> of these claims.<\/p>\n Effects such as these would be minute, but intergalactic distances could magnify them to detectable levels. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely something that\u2019s worth exploring,\u201d said Scholberg.<\/p>\n Already, Arg\u00fcelles\u2013<\/em>Delgado and collaborators have used the diffuse background of cosmic neutrinos \u2014 rather than specific sources like NGC 1068 \u2014 to look for evidence of the quantum structure of space-time. As they reported in Nature Physics<\/em><\/a> in October, they didn\u2019t find anything, but their search was hampered by the difficulty of distinguishing the third variety of neutrino \u2014 tau \u2014 from an electron neutrino in the IceCube detector. What\u2019s needed is \u201cbetter particle identification,\u201d said co-author Teppei Katori<\/a> of King\u2019s College London. Research is underway to disentangle the two types<\/a>.<\/p>\n Katori says knowing specific locations and mechanisms of cosmic neutrino sources would offer a \u201cbig jump\u201d in the sensitivity of these searches for new physics. The exact fraction of each neutrino type depends on the source model, and the most popular models, by chance, predict that equal numbers of the three neutrino species will arrive on Earth. But cosmic neutrinos are still so poorly understood that any observed imbalance in the fractions of the three types could be misinterpreted. The result could be a consequence of quantum gravity, dark matter or a broken neutrino oscillation model \u2014 or just the still-blurry physics of cosmic neutrino production. (However, some ratios would be a \u201csmoking gun\u201d signature of new physics, said Arg\u00fcelles\u2013<\/em>Delgado.)<\/p>\n Ultimately, we need to detect many more cosmic neutrinos, Katori said. And it looks as though we will. IceCube is being upgraded and expanded to 10 cubic kilometers over the next few years, and in October, a neutrino detector under Lake Baikal in Siberia posted its first observation<\/a> of cosmic neutrinos from TXS.<\/p>\n And deep in the Mediterranean, dozens of strings of neutrino detectors collectively called KM3NeT<\/a> are being fastened on the seafloor by a robot submersible to offer a complementary view of the cosmic-neutrino sky. \u201cThe pressures are enormous; the sea is very unforgiving,\u201d said Paschal Coyle, a director of research at the Marseille Particle Physics Center and the experiment\u2019s spokesperson. But \u201cwe need more telescopes scrutinizing the sky and more shared observations, which is coming now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n
\nA New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos<\/br>
\n2023-06-30 21:58:59<\/br><\/p>\nProbing Fundamental Physics <\/strong><\/h2>\n