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Indication of Neutrino Transformation Observed

Posted by timothy on from the you-become-the-particle-you-want-to-be dept.

AmiMoJo writes "A Japanese research group says it has observed for the first time an indication that a type of neutrino can change into another type. The group generated a large amount of neutrinos at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex, or J-PARC, in the prefecture's Tokai Village, and aimed them at the Super-Kamiokande observatory in Gifu Prefecture about 300 kilometers away, to look for neutrino oscillation. As a result, the group observed that muon neutrinos can change into electron neutrinos."

2 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Re:proof by Entropius · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes. This is how statistics works.

    The standard definition of "probably" in the particle physics community is a five-sigma signal, which means that the odds of it happening by chance are 1.4 * 10^-14.

  2. Re:proof by artor3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    How many possible sources of "noise" you have in 300 km? (i.e. radioactive particles that just decided to emit a neutrino?)

    The odds that a random bit of radioactive material creates a neutrino that just so happens to hit your detector are very small. And they can be controlled for...

    Can you control all the radioactive decays that lead to a neutrino somewhere in those 300 km?

    I get the feeling you're not well versed in science. You don't "control" every radioactive decay. You control for them. You run a control experiment and figure out how many and what sorts of neutrinos you expect to see. Then you turn on your neutrino source, and see how the counts change.

    And here's a source for the existence of neutrino beams: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_horn