Physicists discover mysterious ‘ghost particles’ for the first time at the Large Hadron Collider

A major breakthrough in particle physics was made at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

filter for the first time neutrino They were detected not only in the LHC, but also in The Particle accelerator.

The six interactions of neutrinos, detected using the FASERnu Sub-Nutrino detector, not only demonstrated the feasibility of the technology, but opened a new avenue for studying these mysterious particles, especially at high energies.

“Before this project, there was no sign of neutrinos in the particle accelerator,” he said. Physicist Jonathan Feng said: of the University of California, Irvine, co-chair of the FASER Collaboration.

“This major breakthrough is a step toward developing a deeper understanding of these elusive particles and the role they play in the universe.”

In fact, neutrinos are found everywhere. It is one of the most abundant subatomic particles in the universe. But it carries almost no charge or mass, so even though it flows through the universe at nearly the speed of light, it hardly interacts with it. Billions of things are flowing through you right now. For the neutrino, the rest of the universe is fundamentally immaterial; For this reason, they are also called ghost particles.

Although they rarely interact, it is never the same. Detectors like ice Cube in Antarctica, Super Kamiokande in Japan and mini pong At Fermilab in Illinois, he used sensitive light-detecting arrays designed to capture the showers of light that appear when neutrinos interact, for example, with other particles in a completely dark environment.

But for a long time, scientists also wanted to study neutrinos from particle collisions. This is because Collider neutrinos, which consist mainly of the decay of hadrons, are produced at very high energies, which are not well studied. Collider neutrino discovery provides access to energies and types of neutrinos rarely seen elsewhere.

FASERnu is what is known as a file Emulsifier reagent. Lead and tungsten plates exchange with emulsion layers: During particle experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, neutrinos can collide with nuclei in lead and tungsten plates, producing particles that leave traces in emulsion layers, just like ionizing radiation creates tracks in wolkenkamer.

Paintings should be developed like photographic films. Then physicists could analyze the particles’ trajectories to see what produced them; Whether it is a neutrino, what is the “flavor” or type of neutrino. There are three flavors of neutrinos—electron, muon, and tau—as well as their antineutrino counterparts.

In the FASERnu experimental run performed in 2018, six candidate neutrino interactions were recorded in the emulsion layers. This might not sound like much, given the number of particles that were produced during the operation of the Large Hadron Collider, but it provided collaboration with two important pieces of information.

“First, verify that the forward position of the ATLAS interaction point in the LHC is the correct location for detecting neutrino collisions,” feng zi. “Second, our efforts demonstrated the effectiveness of using an emulsion detector to monitor these types of neutrino interactions.”

The experimental detector was a relatively small device, about 29 kg (64 lb). The team is currently working on the full version, approximately 1,100 kilograms (over 2,400 pounds). This instrument would be significantly more sensitive and allow researchers to distinguish the flavors of neutrinos from their antineutrino counterparts.

They predict that the LHC’s third sensing cycle will produce 200 billion electron neutrinos, 6 trillion muon neutrinos, 9 billion tau neutrinos and their antineutrinos. Since we’ve only detected about 10 tau neutrinos so far, this would be a pretty big problem.

The co-op is also looking for elusive prey. They have high hopes for the unveiling dark photons, which is currently default, but may help determine the nature of dark matterThe mysterious, undetectable mass that makes up most of the matter in the universe.

But the discoveries of neutrinos alone are a very exciting step forward in our understanding of the fundamental components of the universe.

“Given the power of our new detector and its main location at CERN, we expect to be able to record more than 10,000 neutrino interactions in the next round of the LHC, starting in 2022,” Physicist and astronomer David Casper said: of the University of California, Irvine, co-chair of the FASER Project.

“We will discover higher-energy neutrinos produced from a man-made source.”

The team’s research was published in physical evaluation d.