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Neutrinos are perhaps the most underrated particles of humanity. A physicist, an intelligent man and an intelligent man, Wolfgang Pauli first proposed their existence in 1930 as a missing piece of the puzzle – some nuclear reactions were more in the process than in the future. Pauli felt that something tiny and invisible should be involved – therefore, the neutrino, which is a little Italian for "little neutral".
In the decades that followed this initial proposal, we came to know and love these little neutral guys, but they did not fully understand them. They have a bit of mass, but we do not know how much. And they can turn one type of neutrino (called "flavor" because why not?) In another, but we do not know how.
Whenever physicists do not understand something, they are really excited because, by definition, the answer to the puzzle needs to be outside of known physics. Thus, the mystery of the mass and mixture of neutrinos can give us clues to mysteries such as the first moments of the Big Bang.
A small problem: the smallness. Neutrinos are tiny and almost never talk about normal matter. Billions and billions of billions are currently going through your body. Do you notice? No, you do not do it. To really dig into the properties of neutrinos, you have to go ahead, and three new experiments on neutrinos will soon be put online to help us better understand. We hope.[[[[Six underground science laboratories]
Let's explore:
DUNE
You may have heard of the excitement of the remake of the classic science fiction novel "Dune". That's not it Instead, this DUNE represents the "Deep underground neutrino experiment, which consists of two parts, the first part will be in Fermilab, Illinois, and will include a giant diabolical-style neutrino cannon that will accelerate the protons the speed of lightcrush them in business and shoot trillions of neutrinos per second.
From there, the neutrinos will move in a straight line (that's all they can do) until they reach the second part, about 1,300 kilometers away. Sanford Underground Research Center in South Dakota. Why underground? Because neutrinos move in a straight line (again, not the choice) but the Earth is curved, the detector must remain about 1.6 km below the surface. And this detector contains about 40,000 tons (36,000 tons) of liquid argon.
Hyper-Kamiokande
The predecessor of the future Hyper-Kamiokande ("Hyper-K" if you want to be cool at physics parties) was aptly named Super-Kamiokande ("Super-K" for the same reasons), located near Hida, Japan. This is a fairly simple configuration for both instruments: a giant ultrapure water tank surrounded by photomultiplier tubes, which amplify very weak light signals.
From time to time, a neutrino collides with a water molecule, causing an electron or a positron (the antimatter partner of the electron) to form a molecule. farther away than the speed of light in the water. This causes a flash of bluish light called Radiation of Cherenkov, and this light is captured by the photomultiplier tubes. Study the flash, understand the neutrino.
Super-K entered the super-story in 1998, providing the first solid proof that neutrinos change flavor as they fly, based on observations of neutrinos produced in the infernal depths of the solar core. The discovery allowed the physicist Takaaki Kajita to obtain a Nobel Prize and to Super-K an affectionate pat on the photomultiplier tube.
Hyper-K is like Super-K but bigger. With a capacity of 264 million gallons (1 billion liters) of water, it has 20 times the collected volume of Super-K, which means that it can potentially collect 20 times more neutrinos at the same time time as the Super-K. Hyper-K will search for neutrinos produced by natural and organic reactions, such as fusion and supernovae, in the universe, from around 2025. Who knows? This could also win a Nobel Prize to someone.
PINGU
I do not know exactly why physicists choose the acronyms they use for giant scientific experiments. In this case, Pingu is the name of a lively European penguin who has several mishaps and learns important life lessons on the southern continent. It also means "Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade" (PINGU).
The IceCube part of this acronym refers to the largest and worst neutrino experiment in the world. Based at the South Pole, the experiment consists of a chain of detectors deeply sunk in the polar ice cap that will use the crystalline clarity of this ice to do the same thing that super and hyper-k do in Japan: detect the radiation of Cherenkov. produced by neutrinos crossing the ice. The experiment really only started a few years ago, but the scientists who run it are already looking forward to the next version.
Here's why. IceCube may be big, but that does not mean it's the best in all areas. He has a blind spot: because of his huge size (one cubic kilometer of ice), he has trouble seeing neutrinos at low energy; they just do not make enough noise and sparkle to be seen by the IceCube detectors.
Enter PINGU: a group of additional detectors, located near the center of IceCube, specifically designed to capture low-energy neutrinos hitting the Earth.
When it (hopefully) comes online, PINGU will join the army of instruments and detectors from around the world who are trying to capture as many ghostly ghosts as possible and reveal their secrets. .
Originally published on Science live.
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