- 2973 - NEUTRINOS - the littlest particles! Many more discoveries are needed to explain neutrinos. A detector in the ice at the South Pole may make these new neutrino discoveries. Another experiment is sending neutrinos from Illinois to South Dakota. Neutrinos are a billion times more abundant than electrons.
- If you get hit by a baseball you feel it. A baseball is composed of one trillion atoms all interconnected. If you got hit by a single atom you would not feel it. It could be a cosmic ray, which is a misnomer because they are not rays at all, they are particles, these atom nuclei are moving at near light speeds. They could collide with other atoms inside your body and cause mutations. But, you would not feel a thing, not a single atom.
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- And, you would not feel the trillions of neutrinos passing through every inch of your body every second. They are the smallest fundamental particles. Neutrinos are so small they are nearly massless. Passing through your body they almost never collide with a single atom.
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- The Standard Model of Particle Physics has only 12 particles. The protons and electrons are well understood. Protons are made of other fundamental particles called quarks. And quarks are becoming better understood. But, the three types of neutrinos in this Standard Model are not well understood.
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- Experiments at Fermi lab are hoping to change that. Neutrinos carry no electrical charge. They carry almost no mass. This makes them extremely difficult to detect. Fermi lab in Illinois generates the neutrinos and sends them to the detector in South Dakota. The detector is called DUNE, the deep underground neutrino experiment.
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- Physicists believe that neutrinos acquire their mass by a new undiscovered type of physics. The first neutrino was discovered in 1962. We now know that there are three types of neutrinos and that they can oscillate between each type.
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------------------------------ The three types are:
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------------------------------------- Electron neutrinos
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------------------------------------ Muon neutrinos
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------------------------------------ Tau neutrinos
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- A type might leave Fermi lab as an “electron neutrino” and arrive in South Dakota as a “tau neutrino” in the DUNE detector. This discovery of identity transformation has helped explain why the Sun’s neutrinos arrive with us detecting only 33% of what was expected.
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- The math and theory expected electron neutrinos but 67% of them morphed into muon and tau neutrinos during their travel time to Earth. The detectors were designed to detect only the first type. To allow the morphing to occur physics theory requires neutrinos to have some mass. Without there being mass physics theory says that they cannot morph. Go figure?
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- Quantum Mechanics math predicts there to be three types of neutrinos. Quantum Mechanics also states that these very small particles exist in a state of uncertain probabilities. Neutrinos have different masses. In order to travel the speed of light the mix of their masses must change between the different types of neutrinos.
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- The DUNE experiment hopes to learn the exact mass of each neutrino and to explain how and why they morph between masses.
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- How do neutrinos get their mass in the first place? Other particles inside atoms obtain their mass by interacting with the Higgs Field that pervades all of space.
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- All neutrinos discovered to date have left-handed spin. In order to interact with the Higgs Field they must have a right-handed spin. Neutrinos have so little mass, 1/100,000 the mass of an electron. Perhaps they interact with another undiscovered field other than the Higgs. Could Dark Matter be that undiscovered mass?
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- Another hope in these experiments is to discover why the universe is made of matter and not equal amounts of anti-matter?? If the universe evolved from nothing then there should be equal amounts of each. Maybe the answer might be discovered while studying neutrinos and anti-neutrinos? Maybe right-handed neutrinos having right handed spin could explain this?
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- The DUNE detector is designed to make several of these new discoveries. The detector contains 17,000 tons of liquid argon. When a neutrino strikes a nucleus of argon the collisionleaves a trail of electrons that the detector can “see”.
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- These detections could start up in 2018 in a miniature version. The full experiment would not be operational until 2020. The more we understand the more questions we have. The questions in particle physics will keep us busy for a long time.
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--------------------------------- Other reviews a available upon request:
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- 2938 - NEUTRINO - and cosmic ray discoveries? - We all know that all material is made of atoms. Atoms combine into elements and molecules to create our material world. But what makes up atoms? You may have already learned that they are made up of electrons and protons. Now we enter the world of Particle Physics, what makes up protons?
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- 2835 - NEUTRINOS - a thermal history. If you could see neutrinos you could see back in time to 1 second after the Big Bang. To see with visible light, we see with photons. And, because the Universe is expanding seeing with visible light, near the red end of the spectrum, we can see back to when the Universe was 2.3 billion years old,
17 % its current size.
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- 2762 - NEUTRINOS - experiments to learn more? The difficult-to-detect neutrino seems to undergo a strange identity-flipping process, and if this reaction occurs differently between neutrinos and antineutrinos, then this process, called neutrino oscillation, could help physicists explain why matter dominates over antimatter.
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- 2619 - NEUTRINOS - and other mysterious particles? Our best model of particle physics is being challenged with the weirdness a series of strange events in Antarctica. Strange results from laboratory experiments suggest a ghostly new species of neutrinos beyond the three described in the Standard Model. And the universe seems full of dark matter that no particle in the Standard Model can explain.
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- 2223 - Astronomers have learned much more about the Universe with their “microwave telescopes”. They have determined the Universe to be 13,800,000,000 years old. They have determined that only 5% or the Universe is visible or ordinary matter. The rest is Dark Matter (25%) and Dark Energy (70%) . To learn more astronomers want to be able to use “neutrino telescopes” and “gravity wave telescopes”.
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- 2131 - Neutrinos - The Little Neutral Ones. The neutrino is a tiny elementary particle that is a billion times more abundant than protons and electrons that make up our normal atoms. Neutrinos are produced in the fusion reactions of our Sun and in the natural radioactive decay of elements in the Earth’s crust. Potassium 40 in your body is emitting 340,000,000 neutrinos every day. This review contains the history of discoveries of neutrinos.
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- 2093 - Neutrinos - What have we learned? - Neutrinos are the smallest atomic particles. If we could see neutrinos they would be exceptional probes into our environment. Neutrinos are produced in fusions reactions in the Sun and stars, and in radioactive decay in the earth's crust. The ICECUBE neutrino detector at the South Pole has over 5,000 light sensors to detect neutrinos interacting with atoms in the ice.
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- 2026 - Many more discoveries are needed to explain neutrinos. A detector in the ice at the South Pole may make these new neutrino discoveries. Another experiment is sending neutrinos from Illinois to South Dakota. Neutrinos are a billion times more abundant than electrons.
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- 1978 - Neutrinos are sub-atomic particles that reside with electrons and protons in the center of atoms. They release in mass from the fusion reactions that go on in the center of our Sun. They are nearly massless with no charge and trillions have passed through your body as you have read this sentence.
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- 1840. - Are there sterile neutrinos? They would be right handed. That would be a neutrino with right handed spin. It is predicted in the math in physics. But, it is yet to be discovered. It took 50 years later after its prediction for the Higgs Boson to be discovered.
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- 1814. - Defines what are neutrinos are and provides an index of seven more reviews on the subject.
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- 1631. - Because neutrinos are neutral particles they travel through space in a straight line unaffected by magnetic fields. They arrive hours ahead of the light coming from a supernovae explosions. Astronomers hope that neutrino detectors can be used to study supernovae. They can get their telescopes looking in the right places before the explosion happens.
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- 1608. - While you are reading this sentence 5,000,000 neutrinos passed through your thumbnail. They are generated in the Earths crust, the Sun, the Big Bang, supernovae, and even from inside your own body. Neutrinos come in 3 flavors. Only the left handed neutrinos interact with the weak nuclear force.
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- 1589.- Neutrinos are unaffected by the strong nuclear force. Neutrinos are created in radioactive decay. These small particles were proposed to exist in 1930. They were not discovered until 1942. Neutrinos may be their own anti-particle. Neutrinos are so small they comprise only 0.3% percent of the mass-energy of the universe.
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- 1511. - Particles that the Standard Model of Particle physics predicts, but, that we have yet to find. Sterile neutrinos may explain the structure of galaxies. It may explain the distance between galaxies.
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- 1219. - ICECUBE is a neutrino telescope located deep in the ice at the South Pole. It will not see photons. It will see neutrinos. New discoveries are bound to occur.
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- 1139 - Neutrino telescopes could look further back in time then light telescopes can detect. The universe will “light up” when we can see with neutrino eyes.
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- 630. - Neutrinos are a billion times more abundant than electrons. Potassium 40 in your body is emitting 340,000,000 neutrinos every day. This review contains the history of discoveries of neutrinos.
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January 10, 2021 2026 2973
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