Experiments Create Particles Out of a Vacuum Using Neutrinos

BarbaraHudson writes: In a new series of experiments, scientists report (abstract) that neutrinos, notable for how infrequently they interact with matter, can strike a glancing blow on an atom's nucleus, and the side effect is the generation of a new particle out of a vacuum. Professor Kevin McFarland says the creation of the new particle is what shields the nucleus from being blown apart by the collision. "Producing an entirely new particle – in this case a charged pion – requires much more energy than it would take to blast the nucleus apart – which is why the physicists are always surprised that the reaction happens as often as it does. McFarland adds that even painstakingly detailed theoretical calculations for this reaction 'have been all over the map.'"

Comments

Re:Getting something from nothing?

[Electricity Likes Me]

Rendering artifacts due to floating point precision!

You omitted the relevant arXiv article

[Anonymous Coward]

TFS's topic of "Experiments Create Particles Out of a Vacuum Using Neutrinos" is not discussed in the paper

• "Reanalysis of bubble chamber measurements of muon-neutrino induced single pion production"

of 18 Nov which you linked, but in McFarland's 25 Nov paper

• "Measurement of Coherent Production of $Ï^\pm$ in Neutrino and Anti-Neutrino Beams on Carbon from $E_ν$ of $1.5$ to $20$ GeV".

From the latter,

In conclusion, the coherent production of pions on carbon nuclei for both neutrino and anti-neutrino beams is precisely measured by isolating a sample with no visible nuclear breakup and low |t| transferred to the nucleus.