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Nutrino News, Ghost ripples....

stubeeef

stubeeef

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 10, 2004
2,715
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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&e=2&u=/space/20050621/sc_space/ghostlyripplesinspace

Interesting read about Nutrinos, CMB (cosmic microwave background), and the effects of these elusive buggers. Turns out there are roughly 2500 nutrinos per cubic inch of space.

According to the standard theory, neutrinos arose in large numbers out of the fires of the Big Bang. These so-called "background" neutrinos still exist: with 2,500 of them inhabiting every cubic inch of the universe.


Trotta and Alessandro Melchiorri of La Sapienza University in Rome have found evidence in the universe's distant past for wrinkles in this neutrino background.


"It has been one of the holy grails of cosmology to find the neutrinos that were made in the Big Bang," said Scott Dodelson from Theoretical Astrophysics Group at Fermilab. "This is another piece of indirect evidence."


Besides supporting the Big Bang theory, the ripples also provide a unique test of neutrino physics.
Click to expand...
 
Ha, with detection of neutrinos being so rare to begin with, it really is a Holy Grail of sorts. Although, I have to wonder if seeing the flash of light as a neutrinos hits a water molecule is enough info to determine anything of value from the Big Bang. I'm thinking a different approach will be needed.....and they even mention that there are no sensors available now or in the works that could do it.

Although I find it interesting, I don't know if I would want to be the one doing the searching, sounds a like a lot of waiting for the next little blip on the monitor....

D
 
Spell neutrino correctly. It's printed 5 times in only the part of the article you quoted.
 
Mr. Anderson said:
Ha, with detection of neutrinos being so rare to begin with, it really is a Holy Grail of sorts. Although, I have to wonder if seeing the flash of light as a neutrinos hits a water molecule is enough info to determine anything of value from the Big Bang. I'm thinking a different approach will be needed.....and they even mention that there are no sensors available now or in the works that could do it.

Although I find it interesting, I don't know if I would want to be the one doing the searching, sounds a like a lot of waiting for the next little blip on the monitor....

D
Click to expand...

This article isn't talking though about finding neutrinos, its talking about how the irregularities in neutrino distribution and ripples in the neutrino distribution influenced the clumpiness of the universe near time 0 by moving smaller clumps around.

It looks though like the authors had a solution and went looking for a problem. I need to know more about astrophysics to give good answers.
 
apple2991 said:
Spell neutrino correctly. It's printed 5 times in only the part of the article you quoted.
Click to expand...

'Nutrino' looks like it could be a diet pill or some sort of fiber-enhancing, anti-gas supplement. Ripple effects indeed
 
MongoTheGeek said:
This article isn't talking though about finding neutrinos, its talking about how the irregularities in neutrino distribution and ripples in the neutrino distribution influenced the clumpiness of the universe near time 0 by moving smaller clumps around.

It looks though like the authors had a solution and went looking for a problem. I need to know more about astrophysics to give good answers.
Click to expand...

I sort of realize that - but they made mention of the sensors and I sort of went OT on it. I had actually started to talk about the fact that the solar system and Milky Way are constantly moving through space and that it most likely helps in finding the 'clumps' and by looking at things over time they can get a better idea of the distribution.

This is assuming that they can only observe neutrinos on the planet in a lab or facility. Have there been any studies of neutrinos in space?

D
 
ha, just look what ads are coming up at the bottom of the page. you gotta love those flexible advertising things. :D


edit:
ups, it just changed from "e=mc2 is wrong" and "there are no quarks" to "free mac mini". i found the original ads more interesting.....
 
Mr. Anderson said:
I sort of realize that - but they made mention of the sensors and I sort of went OT on it. I had actually started to talk about the fact that the solar system and Milky Way are constantly moving through space and that it most likely helps in finding the 'clumps' and by looking at things over time they can get a better idea of the distribution.

This is assuming that they can only observe neutrinos on the planet in a lab or facility. Have there been any studies of neutrinos in space?

D
Click to expand...
They way we currently study v's is a little difficult to do in space, that lab in Japan is like an underground lake, not exactly something space worthy. I don't see the point in v research, and I'm a physicist by trade! Little buggers exist to meet conservation of energy/momentum and as a little part of the quark theory, it isn't like we can harness them for energy or anything.
 
jared_kipe said:
They way we currently study v's is a little difficult to do in space, that lab in Japan is like an underground lake, not exactly something space worthy. I don't see the point in v research, and I'm a physicist by trade! Little buggers exist to meet conservation of energy/momentum and as a little part of the quark theory, it isn't like we can harness them for energy or anything.
Click to expand...

Or use them to see through walls. They don't interact enough to actually use them to see anything even if you could catch all the the ones that pass through something.
 
apple2991 said:
Spell neutrino correctly. It's printed 5 times in only the part of the article you quoted.
Click to expand...

Naa thats ok, don't feel like it, feel free to put me on ignore.
 
MongoTheGeek said:
Or use them to see through walls. They don't interact enough to actually use them to see anything even if you could catch all the the ones that pass through something.
Click to expand...

Can they even be created by anything here on earth, or is it all stellar and cosmic in nature?

If you could somehow create a neutrino laser..... :D

D
 
Mr. Anderson said:
Can they even be created by anything here on earth, or is it all stellar and cosmic in nature?

If you could somehow create a neutrino laser..... :D

D
Click to expand...
You couldn't make a neutrino laser for many reasons, one of which is that they intereact so poorly that you couldn't get them to bounce back and forth in a cavity. Another is that they only arise from fairly energetic interactions, like muon->electron conversions and basically anything else involving electrons being created/destroyed. A laser needs to have a metastable state (I guess if you could lump a bunch of muons in one place, but then this next part), then you need to be able to stimulate them to all give off their radiation at once (muons decay with a mean life time like radioactivty, you can't FORCE them to decay). So bottom line, we can make them on earth if we want to, but they are not useful in anyway, no idea why neutrino research is so friggin popular these days.
 
jared_kipe said:
You couldn't make a neutrino laser for many reasons, one of which is that they intereact so poorly that you couldn't get them to bounce back and forth in a cavity.
Click to expand...


Ha! I was joking, actually. I was thinking of something that would be absolutely useless, since it would shoot a beam of neutrinos and it wouldn't do anything.....

But I've since done a bit of reading on the subject, and to mongo's credit found this
"The interdependence of solar neutrino theory and observation has been clearly recognized by the funding agencies. Because of this interdependence, we have found it natural to describe the combined history of the subject as we remember it.''
Click to expand...

So as a separate body of research, these guys get their own funding to play with....:D

D
 
Mr. Anderson said:
Ha! I was joking, actually. I was thinking of something that would be absolutely useless, since it would shoot a beam of neutrinos and it wouldn't do anything.....

But I've since done a bit of reading on the subject, and to mongo's credit found this

So as a separate body of research, these guys get their own funding to play with....:D

D
Click to expand...
Wouldn't do anything?!? It would boil water if you put near infinite energy into it. Of course it would have to boil 'all' of the water since you can't direct it and it effects randomly.
 
jared_kipe said:
Wouldn't do anything?!? It would boil water if you put near infinite energy into it. Of course it would have to boil 'all' of the water since you can't direct it and it effects randomly.
Click to expand...

well, I did say useless - it wouldn't do anything useful. And if you had infinite energy, boiling a tub of water wouldn't be a special trick and most people wouldn't be impressed even if they knew you did it neutrinos :D

D
 
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