User: theyendi

Re:Super-Kamiokande

On: Giant Neutrino Detector, 2km Underground

I wonder what else they'll be able to find out about neutrinos with this detector. I remember the Super-Kamiokande Detector at the University of Tokyo Institute for Cosmic Ray Research. They detected the first neutrino oscillations with it back in 1998 and did an experiment a couple of years ago with an atrificial neutrino beam that further supports the hypothesis that neutrinos oscillate and therefore possess a small amount of mass. I guess this Canadian detector ought to support the theory further.

The first data on possible neutrino oscillations came from the Homestake experiment. This experiment was the first to notice a deficit in the total number of solar neutrinos. However, as the method was to observe the reaction nu_e + Cl(37) -> Ar(37)* + e was to detect the final argon atom chemically, this was a difficult measurement. Six events per day were expected, but only two were measured. This experiment had a 30 year baseline, so the data was highly statistically significant.

It will probably be many years before the SNO can produce any kind of useful experimental results, though. Neutrino interactions are of extremely low probability...

D2O is much better than H2O for studying neutrinos. It allows both charged current (nu_e + d -> p + p + e) and neutral current (nu_x + d -> p + n + nu_x) reactions. These reactions are unique to heavy water detectors. The primary reaction in light water detectors is electron scattering (e + nu_x -> e + nu_x). It proceeds at about 10% the rate of the charged current reaction above.

I attended a talk last week by a SNO collaborator, and he said that there would be some interesting results later this spring.

--The Yendi

Re:Another reason the SSC shouldn't have died.

On: Creating New Matter: Primordial Soup @ CERN

We could have probably done this a few years ago if the SSC in Texas(?) hadn't been axed by Congress....but NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Sorry. A quark-gluon plasma would not have been created at the SSC. The SSC was designed for detecting the Higgs boson, which is another animal alltogether.

Quark-gluon plasmas are created in regimes which are both high temperature and quark rich, like the environments produced at SPS (CERN) and RHIC (Brookhaven). High temperature environments are produced wherever you put enough energy into a system. The SSC would have qualified for a high temperature environment. However, there just aren't enough quarks in two protons (6) to get a high quark environment. The SPS experiment smashed lead onto lead to get more than 1200 quarks into play. This was apparently enough quarks to get a bulk effect like a plasma to sustain for a short time.

--The Yendi