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NuTeV result disagrees with Standard Model

Posted by chrisd on from the darn-old-standard-model dept.

Trevor Johnson writes "New Scientist reports that physicists from the NuTev collaboration at Fermilab have announced a result on their Web page. Bombarding iron nuclei with high-energy neutrinos, they found a 99.75% chance that neutrinos interact slightly differently from the way the Standard Model (the reigning theory which describes the strong, electromagnetic, and weak forces, but not gravity) says they should. Even though the discrepancy is small, it is likely to be significant. There is no theory to explain the difference, but it could indicate a hitherto unknown force. NuTev has submitted a "Physical Review Letter" paper. There is a press release from Fermilab and a plain English version."

8 comments

  1. 1st proton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    it's a biggie.

  2. huh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Crazy. I'm still years away from understanding, but this sounds interesting. What's weird is that the measurements were from 1996 and 1997 and took a year to process. So why did it take so long to release the data?

    1. Re:huh. by rw2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's very common in high energy physics for it to take years to process the data. There is a very complex system in building the detector itself. This is not assembly line stuff. Once the detector is built and taking data it still takes a while to understand the behavior of the detector itself. There can be pieces broken (one trick I was just told about the other day is that a collision detector will have tubes run through it that a radioactive source is dragged through in order to create signal to different components in a controlled fashion as it moves through the tube) that need to be accounted for, manufacturing variance between different pieces of the same component and millions of other such details. Once that's done then 'real' data taking starts. The preliminary analysis starts immediately, but the reason these experiments run as long as they do is because they need that much data to produce solid results. Experiments are expensive to run and if they could run shorter they would.

      Once the data is taken, the final analysis is begun in ernest. The data (petabytes for large collider experiments, but I don't know the size of nutev) is sent all around the world and scientists poke and prod it into shape. One thing that is easy for /.ers to appreciate is the software involved. There are millions of lines of code involved with a modern detectors controls systems and millions more with the analysis of the data the detector produces. Getting this stuff right and testing it to make sure is hard, time consuming work.

      I know of at least one project that stopped taking data in '92 that is still be actively analyzed and has a chance of producing interesting results.

  3. The Science of Taco-Snotting by George+WIPO+Bush · · Score: -1
    What is "Taco-snotting?"

    "Taco-snotting" is a term used by CmdrTaco to refer to the practice of sucking off a homosexual man and blowing the semen back out his nose onto his partner's face or body. Usually a long stream of semen is left on CmdrTaco's face, dribbling out of his nose, leading it to look like a large snot. Hence the term, "Taco-snotting."

    Why am I getting emails from CmdrTaco asking me if I would enjoy a round of "Taco-snotting" with him?

    You may have recently received an email similar to the following:
    From: cmdrtaco@slashdot.org
    To: wipotroll@hotmail.com
    Subject: Hey, baby - jion me in a taco-snott! :)

    Hey, baby!

    Ever done a Taco-snotting with anothar fellow geek? Its more fun then trolling Slashdot, trust me! All that talk you troll with about homasexual incest and stuff got me all horny and hot for you! Is it serius? Please tell me that itt is! If you want to get with me and my Slashdot bois, drop me an emale!

    ps- Please replie to me at horny_rob_6969@hotmail.com. I'd rather the guys at VA Linux are not seen this. :) :)

    --
    CmdrTaco (cmdrtaco@slashdot.org)
    You most likely accidentally forgot to uncheck the "Willing to Taco-snot" checkbox in your preferences. Whenever CmdrTaco gets bored, he roams through the database, penis in hand, looking for people who might enjoy a Taco-snotting with him. And this time, he found you. To disable this setting, log in, go to your user page, click on You, and uncheck the box next to "Willing to Taco-snot." Of course, CmdrTaco's probably already got the hots for your semen, so it's probably too late.

    Can I stop receiving emails from CmdrTaco?

    Probably. If you indulge him in a Taco-snot or two, he might leave you alone. You might also want to look into mail filtering, or purchasing a heavy, blunt object to ward off rampaging homosexual geeks in heat. If he gets you, and you let him Taco-snot you, he might chain you up in his basement and use you as his sex toy/slave for the rest of your life, or until he accidentally drowns you in cum while using you as his sex pony in a "circle-snot."

    What is a "Circle-snot"?

    A "circle-snot" is a Taco-snotting circle-jerk: When CmdrTaco, CowboiKneel, and Homos get together and Taco-snot each other's gooey, hot, sticky cum on each other's faces and bodies until they're covered with sticky, sweet man juice. Roblowme usually provides the extra lubricant; he owns a limo service and has ample supplies of motor oil and axle grease. To complete the circle, Michael, Timothy, and Jamie sometimes join in, dressed in full Gestapo uniforms complete with Nazi regalia, and proceed to snot each other's cum and whip each other's asses with riding crops and cattleprods until their pasty, white geek bodies are exhausted from all the passionate, homosexual revelry.

    Does Jon Katz get involved in this? I thought he was a paedophile, not a homosexual.

    Actually, he's a homosexual paedophile. He's also a coprophiliac. Jon Katz is somewhat of a loner and doesn't involve himself in circle-snots. Mr. Katz usually engages in a game called "Katz juicy-douching" with his harem of little boys, which involves administering an enema to himself of little-boy urine, spooging the vile muck from his ass into a plastic bag, then slathering the goo all over his little boy's chained up and naked bodies.

    Are you getting hard writing this?

    Why, yes. Join me in a WIPO-snot?

    No, thanks. I'm already Taco's boi toi.


    $Id: tacosnotting.txt,v 1.2 2001/11/08 22:35:16 wipo Exp $
    --

    J. Wipo Troll, Esq.
    Crapflooder Associates
    Slashdot.org

  4. Slashdot Community by goodchef · · Score: -1, Troll

    Are we slashdot readers all so focused on being geeks that nobody knows anything about the standard model worth posting? Really now. Where I come from, we learn about high-energy neutrinos in junior high. btw, First Post!

    --

    "Inflammable means flammable? What a strange country!" -Dr. Nick, The Simpsons

  5. Look harder - there's probably more science here! by wnknisely · · Score: 5, Informative

    To explain the discrepancy between their very precise findings and their expectations, NuTeV experimenters wonder if their neutrinos have felt a new force previously unobserved in nature, or if there is some hitherto undiscovered particle influencing neutrino interactions.

    It seems like there a whole bunch of weird shi^H^Htuff going on with Neutrinos. The Sudbury experiment this summer is starting to show non-zero neutrino mass, which I understood meant that oscillation between states was going to not happer - or be severely limited.

    Now this experiment seems to show that not only is oscillation possibly happening but at a slightly greater rate than we expect.

    Admittedly these are completely different effects - and on the surface aren't related but...

    I agree with the quote above - my "spidey sense" is making me think that something really interesting is going on with Neutrinos, and perhaps the elementary particle types should start really focusing on getting some better data...

    You know - there are going to be a number of vacant deep mine shafts coming vacant in Afgahnistan soon...

    --
    In illa quae ultra sunt
  6. non-zero == oscillation by rw2 · · Score: 2

    not non-zero != oscillation as I think you said.

  7. Just the Opposite by Neil+Rubin · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The Sudbury experiment [queensu.ca] this summer is starting to show non-zero neutrino mass, which I understood meant that oscillation between states was going to not happer - or be severely limited.

    It's actually precisely the opposite. The modern way to understand this is in terms of quantum fields. The energy density of space depends on the values of these fields. In order for one neutrino to oscillate into another, the expression for this energy density must include a term which contains the anti-neutrino field of one flavor of neutrino and the neutrino field of another flavor (neutrinos come in three types, called flavors). This allows a neutrino of one flavor to be annihilated at the same time as another is created.

    Now mass for a particular neutrino flavor comes mainly from a term containing the neutrino and anti-neutrino fields of the same flavor, but also those terms that mix it with other flavors. To be more precise, the measured masses of neutrinos are the eigenvalues of the matrix made up of these terms which multiply anti-neutrino and neutrino fields.

    The only matrix with all eigenvalues zero is the zero matrix. Thus, if all neutrinos are massless, there is no mixing. The inverse is not necessarily true.