Neutrino Hunters Bonnie Fleming and Mitchell Soderberg inspect a prototype liquid-argon detector called ArgoNeuT that will pave the way for the MicroBooNE facility at Fermilab.
Image: Fermilab
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Gravity's Engines
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The detection of extra dimensions beyond the familiar four—the three dimensions of space and one of time—would be among the most earth-shattering discoveries in the history of physics. Now scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., are designing a new experiment that would investigate tantalizing hints that extra dimensions may indeed exist.
Last year researchers involved in Fermilab’s MiniBooNE study, which detects elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos, announced that they had found a surprising anomaly. Neutrinos, which have no charge and very little mass, form out of nuclear reactions and particle decays. They come in three types, called flavors—electron, muon and tau—and oscillate wildly from one flavor to another as they travel along. While observing a beam of muon neutrinos generated by one of Fermilab’s particle accelerators, the MiniBooNE researchers found that an unexpectedly high number of the particles in the low-energy range (below 475 million electron volts) had transformed into electron neutrinos. After a year of analysis, the investigators have failed to come up with a conventional explanation for this so-called low-energy excess. The mystery has focused attention on an intriguing and very unconventional hypothesis: a fourth kind of neutrino may be bouncing in and out of extra dimensions.
String theorists, who seek to unify the laws of gravity with those of quantum mechanics, have long predicted the existence of extra dimensions. Some physicists have proposed that nearly all the particles in our universe may be confined to a four-dimensional “brane” embedded within a 10-dimensional “bulk.” But a putative particle called the sterile neutrino, which interacts with other particles only through gravity, would be able to travel in and out of the brane, taking shortcuts through the extra dimensions. In 2005 Heinrich Päs, now at the University of Dortmund in Germany, Sandip Pakvasa of the University of Hawaii and Thomas J. Weiler of Vanderbilt University predicted that the extradimensional peregrinations of sterile neutrinos would increase the probability of flavor oscillations at low energies—exactly the result found at MiniBooNE two years later.
Energized by the prospect of discovering new laws of physics, the MiniBooNE team soon proposed a follow-up experiment called MicroBooNE that could test the sterile neutrino hypothesis. The new detector, a cryogenic tank filled with 170 tons of liquid argon, would be able to detect low-energy particles with much greater precision than its predecessor could. A particle emerging from a neutrino interaction would ionize the argon atoms in its path, inducing currents in arrays of wires at the perimeter of the tank. Scientists could then pinpoint the trajectory of the particle, allowing them to better distinguish between electron neutrino interactions and other events and thus determine whether there really is an excess of oscillations at low energies.
Estimated to cost about $15 million, the MicroBooNE tank would be located near the MiniBooNE detector at Fermilab so that it could observe the same beam of neutrinos. This past June the lab’s physics advisory committee approved the design phase for the project; if all goes well, the detector could begin operating as soon as 2011.
Researchers hope that MicroBooNE will lead to the development of much larger detectors, containing hundreds of thousands of tons of liquid argon in tanks as big as sports arenas. Such facilities could search for other hypothesized phenomena such as the extremely rare decay of protons. “It’s a fantastic new technology,” says Bonnie Fleming, a physicist at Yale University and spokesperson for MicroBooNE. “And it’s crucial for taking the next step in physics.”
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "A New Neutrino Hunt".
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15 Comments
Add CommentA long time ago, I see an article talk about the neutrinos coming from sun oscillate from muon to electron as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo extra dimension really exist?
Why some classic ideas suggest 4 dimension universe will be highly unstable?
All neutrinos oscillate from one type to another, which was discovered a long while back. This was discovered when scientists estimated their experiment would find 10 neutrinos per day (or week? not sure) coming from the sun, but only found 3. This led to the discovery that neutrinos come in 3 types which oscillate from one to another. Only one of the 3 types, electron neutrinos, can be detected (relatively) easily.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcuse me, did I miss something? Did string theory generate a testable prediction? Are verified experimental results looking good for that prediction? And wouldn't the Standard Model pretty much choke on a fourth neutrino, with or without a whole particle family to go with it? Or am I misreading this entire article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy are the "extra" dimensions just in space? Why not time?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn as brief as possble layman's terms, what would be the major implications of discovering additional dimension (s)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf electrons are demonstrably often brought into existence from otherwise insensible particles in the ether, then the entire Free Energy/Overunity field just suddenly became legitimate. All of the claimed Zero Point Energy devices that have been demonstrated seem to operate by creating electromagnetic asymmetries at high frequencies. The peak potentials achieved in their coil oscillations easily reach the 475 Mev threshhold found by these experimenters at Fermilab. So, Yes, Virginia, 'Free Energy' IS possible, it just leaks from another dimension, like water through Hoover Dam; its probably still 'conserved', if you now draw the box big enough to encompass the higher dimensions....So Tesla was right, Dirac was right, and Bearden, Bedini, and Newman are also right...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA very interesting and well documented article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting and complete article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think Sandip,Heinrich and Weiler will be proved to be right after the neutrino hunting exp. of MicroBooNe and string-theory believers and as well as Physics will get a new life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnter Your Comment Here.�e��:��
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi want to tell you what i think and how to understand the university and the speacial somethings.If you agree me blow ,please add up my QQ that is 840974448.Thank you!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think there is an infinite amount of dimensions. from smaller than a quark to bigger than our universe
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnough about the altenate and hidden dimensions. Why is it that professional scientists are allowed to continually bring up discussions and experiments concerning hidden and unseen dimensions. Why don't they use the LHC to look for bigfoot while they 're at it. According to Quantum Mechanics its possible there is a possibility that they could find the big hairt beast. Never has so many highly paid intelligent people been so misguided. The current group of physicists have spent so many years now misinterpreting experimental evidence and ignoring common sense that physics is dying on the vine. How many times does a theory such as String Theory have to fail before somebody says enough! Lets try a different direction. I have a solution that can fix this problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are a group that is challenging the current paradigm in physics which is Quantum Mechanics and String Theory. There is a new Theory of Everything Breakthrough. It exposes the flaws in both Quantum Theory and String Theory. Please Help us set the physics community back on the right course and prove that Einstein was right! Visit our site The Theory of Super Relativity:
http://www.superrelativity.org
Hi Here I am trying to relate the nutrino puzzle to our daily life.What is the speed of human being?. We can write the following speeds
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy walk 10to 20km/hr
By a bus or train 50 to 500km/hr
By air 1000km/hr
Who knows these particles uses any carriers during their travel
YOU ARE GOING ABOUT THIS ALL WRONG. You see with your eyes and hear with your ears. Your supposed to start with all of that first.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI HAVE SEEN THE OTHER SIDE AND HAVE HEARD AND LISTENED.
What you are looking for, exist but you are going backwards. Your wasting your time and so is the super lab overseas. I can help you find what your looking for. It's easy. You just need to understand what you don't know. Your wasting a lot of money's and time. You can talk to the other side, after death. It's all there and living. I have seen with my own eyes and lived it when I died. It's there. Your own ignorance will prevent you from listening to me and I do speak the truth. YOUR EYES AND YOUR EARS, GET IT? I can tell you don't understand by your TV show on your four mile tunnel, a complete waste of TIME AND MONEY'S. See and listen to logic only. Your chasing your tale. Do you want to actually see and talk to the other side. You can. I know this for sure and how to go about making this happen. It's a simple process of science and pure logic and you can see with your own eyes and listen with your own ears, people that live in the other demension. It's really not that big of a deal.
What I am saying is real and you should follow my lead. I don't want any money's. I just want you to see and hear what I have seen and heard. Seeing is believing. I speak the truth. This other dimension you are looking for exist but you will never see or hear it with the way you are going. Right now, your just plain wasting your time and money's. You should really try some logic and plain simple science. Your making this a lot harder than it really is. You need to stop what your doing and approach this dimension from a different view. Yes, the different dimension does exist, but you need to get on the right track. The way you are going about things right now, you are totally wasting your time and money's. Your trying to create. Thats already been done. You just need to see and hear the other dimension and that is done with a simple assist with and audio and visual adjustment and I can help you with that. Again, I do not want any money's. I know what I am talking about and you don't have a clue and your proving it with the money's your wasting. Unbelievable. Ignorance at it's finest. Come on down to earth and start understanding how it really is. What your trying to see exist but you have to see it as a whole and that will never happen by tearing time apart. You just simply need to view and hear it with an assist. len.again@yahoo.com