The Next Big Physics Machines Are Neutrino Detectors Now that the Large Hadron Collider has apparently found the Higgs Boson, a sort of malaise set over some of the scientists behind the project. What do you do next with a 17-mile underground ring? And will there be a successor—an even larger collider of hadrons? Fear not, lovers of big physics machines. While we await that answer, multiple new mega-projects are coming in the form of sprawling neutrino detectors, according to neutrino scientists who spoke at this weekend’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. China’s building them, Japan is vying for an even larger one that it already has, and the U.S.’s Fermilab, outside Chicago, hopes to start firing neutrinos toward a detector 800 miles away near Mount Rushmore.  Neutrinos are the second smallest known particle (six orders of magnitude smaller than an electron!). The sun creates them. Supernovas create them. The Earth gives off its own. Physicists are fond of reminding people that billions of these ghostly particles pass through your body all the time. But therein lies the problem: Neutrinos interact with ordinary matter so little that they are impossible to detect directly. That is why you need such big machines. To detect neutrinos, physicists frequently have used a big tank of water (or mass of ice) with a batch of photomultipliers. Most neutrinos pass right through the water without interacting with anything, but every now and then one strikes the nucleus of an atom. The particle that’s then released travels faster than light (within the water medium, where the speed of light is slightly slower than normal—this is now the process doesn’t violate the laws of physics.) It creates what’s called Cherenkov radiation, which is how scientists know a neutrino came through. They can also start to figure out its energy level and the direction it came from. Source: popularmechanics.com  Click for high-res version

The Next Big Physics Machines Are Neutrino Detectors

Now that the Large Hadron Collider has apparently found the Higgs Boson, a sort of malaise set over some of the scientists behind the project. What do you do next with a 17-mile underground ring? And will there be a successor—an even larger collider of hadrons?
Fear not, lovers of big physics machines. While we await that answer, multiple new mega-projects are coming in the form of sprawling neutrino detectors, according to neutrino scientists who spoke at this weekend’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. China’s building them, Japan is vying for an even larger one that it already has, and the U.S.’s Fermilab, outside Chicago, hopes to start firing neutrinos toward a detector 800 miles away near Mount Rushmore.

 Neutrinos are the second smallest known particle (six orders of magnitude smaller than an electron!). The sun creates them. Supernovas create them. The Earth gives off its own. Physicists are fond of reminding people that billions of these ghostly particles pass through your body all the time. But therein lies the problem: Neutrinos interact with ordinary matter so little that they are impossible to detect directly. That is why you need such big machines. To detect neutrinos, physicists frequently have used a big tank of water (or mass of ice) with a batch of photomultipliers. Most neutrinos pass right through the water without interacting with anything, but every now and then one strikes the nucleus of an atom. The particle that’s then released travels faster than light (within the water medium, where the speed of light is slightly slower than normal—this is now the process doesn’t violate the laws of physics.) It creates what’s called Cherenkov radiation, which is how scientists know a neutrino came through. They can also start to figure out its energy level and the direction it came from.

Source: popularmechanics.com 

∞Posted on February 17, 2013

Source: popularmechanics.com

Notes: 605 notes

Tags: science,physics,neutrino,machines,particle physics,


Notes

  1. lordofears reblogged this from slimetroop
  2. slimetroop reblogged this from johnnychallenge
  3. evngln reblogged this from yuruyurau
  4. shiman reblogged this from yuruyurau
  5. yuruyurau reblogged this from trss
  6. vanillamustache reblogged this from science-junkie
  7. bonitoboy reblogged this from thescienceofreality
  8. photowalker reblogged this from do-nothing
  9. nothot reblogged this from junmyk
  10. nyx-control reblogged this from hkdmz
  11. kefyyyyy reblogged this from hkdmz
  12. trss reblogged this from wonderthinkanswer and added:
    The Next Big Physics Machines Are Neutrino Detectors Now that the Large Hadron Collider has apparently found the Higgs...
  13. wonderthinkanswer reblogged this from comsmet
  14. dutzche reblogged this from precall
  15. thinkaskquestionask reblogged this from comsmet
  16. rekumblr reblogged this from hkdmz
  17. youmei82 reblogged this from do-nothing
  18. do-nothing reblogged this from johnnychallenge
  19. precall reblogged this from aobouzu
  20. hughughug reblogged this from hkdmz
  21. technerd-org reblogged this from highlandvalley
  22. b-s-v reblogged this from zenigata
  23. junmyk reblogged this from hkdmz
  24. yuyakko reblogged this from hkdmz
  25. junx1209 reblogged this from hkdmz
  26. kazzxz reblogged this from johnnychallenge
  27. aobouzu reblogged this from hkdmz
  28. mozuku0526 reblogged this from zenigata
  29. highlandvalley reblogged this from zenigata
  30. kurono reblogged this from hkdmz
  31. loopdrive reblogged this from hkdmz
  32. suntsuna reblogged this from hkdmz
  33. h-roki reblogged this from hkdmz
  34. eda417 reblogged this from hkdmz
Top of Page