Posted on 11/04/2010 12:31:54 PM PDT by lbryce
Today physicists announced that they may have found the key to explaining dark matter in the universe. It all has to do with the potential discovery of a "sterile neutrino."
According to a release about the new study:
Neutrinos are neutral elementary particles born in the radioactive decay of other particles. The known "flavors" of neutrinos are the neutral counterparts of electrons and their heavier cousins, muons and taus. Regardless of a neutrino's original flavor, the particles constantly flip from one type to another in a phenomenon called "neutrino flavor oscillation."
An electron neutrino might become a muon neutrino, and then later an electron neutrino again. Scientists previously believed three flavors of neutrino exist. In this Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment, dubbed MiniBooNE, researchers detected more oscillations than would be possible if there were only three flavors.
"These results imply that there are either new particles or forces we had not previously imagined," said Byron Roe, professor emeritus in the Department of Physics, and an author of a paper on the results newly published online in Physical Review Letters.
"The simplest explanation involves adding new neutrino-like particles, or sterile neutrinos, which do not have the normal weak interactions."
The three known types of neutrino interact with matter primarily through the weak nuclear force, which makes them difficult to detect. It is hypothesized that this fourth flavor would not interact through the weak force, making it even harder to find.
The existence of sterile neutrinos could help explain the composition of the universe, said William Louis, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who was a doctoral student of Roe's at U-M and is involved in the MiniBooNE experiment.
(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...
Special department of unobservable phenomenon kudos here.
So glad to have made your day.
And we may be a few steps closer to understanding all the matter we haven't yet discovered, and have therefore labeled "dark."Actually, it's called "dark" matter because it does not interact with electromagnetic fields (like light). Our preception of the universe is primarily through electromagnetic radiation or the effects of electronic interactions (touch) and, ultimately, sound. (Sound is only explainable in terms of electronic properties of matter.) Neutrinos were originally "discovered" in the negative: to account for the missing mass/energy and momentum in subatomic particle interactions. "Dark" matter was never any more mysterious than positing particles that behaved in some ways like neutrinos, but weren't like neutrinos, at least like the ones we know about. (Dark matter was "discovered" in an attempt to account for gravitational effects not explainable by the observed mass in the universe, i.e., discovered in the negative.)
No, mesons are now on par with the neutrino.
They are now parmesons..............
By its “oscillations” (no stripper jokes, please).
What will we do on that day?
Since we wouldn't exist, by definition, nothing.
&le:}B^)
May the Schwartz be with you.
2 x 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2
Funny thing after I read this I remember thinking the same thing the other day and pondering on whether I should publish it or not. I finally opted to go get a banana split instead. Obviously I made the right decision!!!
Here there be dragons.
Hexagonal cells are the result of convection. They are common and you can make them in your stove.
Like the story the other week that their “red shift” theory doesn’t apply to Quasars, the idea has been resisted for a decade but its pretty much confirmed they aren’t nearly as far away or moving as fast as the “red shift” says. (Probably because those things spin so fast - my theory)
They’re really good with chocolate chips I hear!!!
Please, can anyone tell me whats to fear from the European collider? What do people think?
That’s nothing! I’ve discovered a ‘dark matter’ black hole, something I’ve dubbed an ‘Asshole’ living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!
I think Taco Bell already has that on the menu. Goes right through you too.
MiniBooNE:
Scientists are more than baffled by what is a seemingly unnatural hexagonal-shaped object that encompasses Saturn's entire north pole.
Imagine scientist's befuddlement when having sighted the first images of the hexagon by Voyagers 1 & 2, the spacecrafts' cameras only pointed at capturing a small glimpse of the hexagon having to wait twenty odd years to getting a look at the hexagon in its entirety! Many of them had thought it was a temporary phenomena in Saturn's clouds only to be shocked it was still there two decades later.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.