CERN researchers have observed and generated high-energy neutrino radiation

https://bigthink.com/hard-science/high-energy-neutrinos-rare-cosmic-events/

by Brajeshwar • 3 years ago

186 50 3 years ago

This is an awesome update. It was only in 2018 that a high energy neutrino was detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (funny name lol) that was traced back to its source, a blazar. This was a active galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center. That was the first time ever that scientists had identified the source of a high energy neutrino, and now scientists generated a whole new avenue of research in astrophysics with this. :)

cubefox• 3 years ago

I think that the unusual thing was that they identified extragalactic neutrinos.

friendlyasparag• 3 years ago

IceCube also likes to name their events after Sesame Street characters, so you’d get things like Bert and Ernie events. Not sure if they still do since you eventually run out of characters.

ouid• 3 years ago

its possible you havent been keeping up with sesame street, because no they won't.

sonofaragorn• 3 years ago

The energy of the IceCube neutrinos is 2 to 4 orders of magnitude higher than the ones detected by this experiment. But this is still cool because it's the highest energy neutrinos detected from man-made sources.

See slide 13 here: https://indico.in2p3.fr/event/29681/contributions/122474/att...

hguant• 3 years ago

IceCube Neutrino Observatory (funny name lol)

It's also an incredibly descriptive and literal name - the observatory is a cubic kilometer of photosensitive detectors frozen in ice at the south pole. When a neutrino interacts with the ice, it produces cherenkov radiation, which can be detected and sent up the chain to a server to classify what was actually detected.

EschatonCometh• 3 years ago

Yeah, wasn't it Sheldon Cooper who discovered that?

- JK

dguest• 3 years ago

Direct link to the source: https://indico.in2p3.fr/event/29681/contributions/122474/att...

hammock2• 3 years ago

Neutrino bomb incoming? Where can I read about proposed weapons using neutrinos?

Scarblac• 3 years ago

https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/

hammock2• 3 years ago

Direct dosage isn’t the only possibility though. Could be used to start a nuclear chain reaction, for example.

We could also find a novel way to unlock the amount of energy required for direct lethal dosage, analogous to how we figured out how to split atoms

throwaway5752• 3 years ago

Great line in this one:

[...]The physicist who mentioned this problem to me told me his rule of thumb for estimating supernova-related numbers: However big you think supernovae are, they're bigger than that.

Here's a question to give you a sense of scale:

Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:

  1. A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or

  2. The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?

Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude.

rsynnott2• 3 years ago

they have observed and generated in the laboratory

[Insert mandatory Three Body Problem reference here]

Gooblebrai• 3 years ago

To be honest, I've read the first and second books and not entirely sure what you mean.

booleandilemma• 3 years ago

There's a scene at the end of the second book where the aliens offer to build a neutrino communication device for humans but the humans opt for one that uses gravity waves instead. It's a very brief reference, I don't know why the parent would have brought it up.

oblak• 3 years ago

I am finishing up the third one and also have no idea.

Many people have thought about neutrino comms

jl6• 3 years ago

If we can both generate and detect neutrinos, we have the basis for a communication device that can operate on a point-to-point basis between any two locations. If Europe wants to send a secret message to Australia, it can point its transmitter towards the ground, and fire the beam through the interior of the Earth. It is very unlikely that there will be anybody in between to intercept the signal.

There may be more practical alternatives of course…

SaberTail• 3 years ago

If anyone does it, it will be financial firms putting them under stock exchanges to get milliseconds of advantage over anyone following the curvature of the earth.

daveguy3• 3 years ago

This implies financial feasibility. It still takes a super collider on one end and a detection tank on the other. But one day it might be feasible. I would think a military warning system would be implemented before a financial aid.

uf00lme• 3 years ago

From my understanding most exchanges put in artificial limits now to ensure anyone with mega bucks for infrastructure are equal

jeffwass• 3 years ago

This was studied decades ago. IIRC the effective bit rate, at least with the detector tech at that time, was insanely slow, like a few bytes per hour (or maybe even per day).

capableweb• 3 years ago

As long as the latency isn't also hours/a day, it could still be useful, even if just one byte, as you could communicate what that byte means out-of-band. So catastrophe-detection systems could use it as an example.

klysm• 3 years ago

Just need to have a satellite orbiting behind

dragonwriter2• 3 years ago

If we can both generate and detect neutrinos, we have the basis for a communication device that can operate on a point-to-point basis between any two locations.

AIUI, you’ll need a much bigger detector farther from the beam location, and the bandwidth is going to suck at any range, but, sure, the odds that someone sticks a neutrino detector in the path is pretty low.

ithkuil• 3 years ago

Neutralink

CERN researchers have observed and generated high-energy neutrino radiation

Related Stories