Tag

Neutrinos

All articles tagged with #neutrinos

space21 hours ago•104 min saved

Cosmic ghost neutrinos whisper from ancient supernovae

Researchers analyzing 14 years of data from the Super-Kamiokande detector report a likely signal of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background—the universe’s background of neutrinos from all past core-collapse supernovas—marking a potential first detection of these cosmic 'ghost' particles; if confirmed, it would illuminate how dying stars enrich their environments and form compact remnants, with plans to combine data with Hyper-Kamiokande to boost sensitivity.

via Space|

#astrophysics #diffuse-supernova-neutrino-background #neutrinos

space1 day ago•7 min saved

Silent Messengers: Neutrinos Illuminate Hidden Galactic Explosions

Avi Loeb explains that neutrinos from Galactic supernovae penetrate interstellar dust and reveal explosions that optical observations often miss. The 1987 SN 1987A produced 24 neutrinos detected by Kamiokande-II, IMB, and Baksan, enabling estimates of the explosion’s energy and the newborn neutron star’s properties. Today’s and forthcoming detectors—Super-Kamiokande, JUNO, IceCube, Hyper-Kamiokande, and DUNE—could observe thousands to tens of thousands of events from a Milky Way supernova, allowing measurements of neutrino masses and oscillations as well as the neutron star’s mass, radius, and binding energy. Webb’s 2022 observations of a neutron-star signature in SN 1987A underscore the potential of neutrino astronomy for probing fundamental physics and stellar remnants.

via Avi Loeb – Medium|

#astrophysics #detectors #neutrinos

science9 days ago•51 min saved

Pure-water detector marks distant reactor neutrinos, hinting at cheaper monitoring

During a 2018 calibration, the SNO+ detector buried deep underground in Ontario used ultrapure water to detect inverse beta decay from antineutrinos emitted by a nuclear reactor over 240 kilometers away, with 99.7% confidence that the signal was reactor-related. The finding shows that plain water can be used to monitor distant reactors via antineutrinos and opens the door to cheaper, safer neutrino-detection methods, while contributing to fundamental neutrino physics.

via Yahoo|

#antineutrinos #inverse-beta-decay #neutrinos

science10 days ago•6 min saved

Underground Water Senses Antineutrinos From a Faraway Reactor

Scientists at the SNO+ underground lab detected inverse beta decay signals from antineutrinos emitted by a nuclear reactor roughly 240 km away using ultrapure water in a large tank, marking the first time water alone captured such low-energy events (down to 1.4 MeV). An analysis of 190 days of calibration data yielded a 3-sigma candidate signal, suggesting plain water could someday be used to monitor reactor output at a distance and demonstrating a cheaper path for neutrino detection.

via ScienceAlert|

#antineutrinos #inverse-beta-decay #neutrinos

space-science15 days ago•6 min saved

Dusty Galaxy Emerges as Possible Source of Ghost Neutrinos

A high-energy neutrino detected by IceCube may have originated from Shadow Blaster, a dust-enshrouded, intensely star-forming galaxy 11 billion light-years away that is gravitationally lensed. This link, while tentative (about 1% chance of a random coincidence), suggests star-forming galaxies could contribute a significant fraction of the diffuse neutrino background, and motivates deeper multiwavelength follow-up with facilities like ALMA and JWST to pinpoint more such sources.

via CNN|

#gravitational-lensing #icecube #neutrinos

science16 days ago•10 min saved

Chasing Ghost Particles: The Global Quest to Catch Neutrinos

Physicists have built some of the world’s most ambitious detectors—buried underground, underwater, and under Antarctic ice—to catch neutrinos, elusive particles that rarely interact with matter. From Pauli’s proposal and the first detection in the 1950s to solar-neutrino puzzles and modern observatories like Kamiokande, Super-Kamiokande, SNO, IceCube, KM3NeT, JUNO, DUNE, and Hyper-K, the field has shown neutrinos come in flavors that oscillate due to mass, guiding experimental design and enabling study of stars, the cosmos, and fundamental physics.

via Quanta Magazine|

#astrophysics #neutrino-detectors #neutrino-oscillations

science17 days ago•7 min saved

Baby Universe in High Definition: Clearest View Yet of the Cosmic Dawn

Astronomers using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope have produced the clearest image yet of the cosmic microwave background, revealing light from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang and mapping tiny temperature fluctuations that seeded the formation of galaxies. The improved data tighten constraints on cosmological parameters, including neutrino masses, and set the stage for future polarization measurements with the Simons Observatory, as researchers seek to connect early-Universe physics with observations of the modern cosmos.

via BBC Sky at Night Magazine|

#atacama-cosmology-telescope #cosmic-microwave-background #early-universe

science22 days ago•97 min saved

Dusty Galaxy Shadow Blaster Pinpoints Home of High-Energy Neutrino

Astronomers trace a high-energy neutrino detected by IceCube to Shadow Blaster, a dust-rich, strongly gravitationally lensed star-forming galaxy about 11 billion light-years away. This marks the first direct link between a single dusty galaxy and a high-energy neutrino, suggesting such galaxies can be significant sources of cosmic neutrinos and could contribute up to ~20% of the diffuse neutrino background; the finding, published in Nature Astronomy, relied on observations from JCMT, SMA, ALMA, and Gemini to map the galaxy’s dense, star-forming core and its lensing mass.

via Space|

#gravitational-lensing #icecube #neutrinos

science26 days ago•9 min saved

AI Learns Cosmic Rules, Then Struggles to See New Physics

Researchers used transfer learning to train an AI on standard ΛCDM simulations before exposing it to models with new physics, dramatically speeding up cosmological simulations. The study found that while pretraining can reduce computational costs by over tenfold, it can also cause negative transfer, making the AI misinterpret genuine new signals as familiar patterns, especially when neutrino mass effects mimic changes in σ8. The work suggests transfer learning can accelerate future data analysis, but awareness of parameter degeneracies is essential to avoid missing new physics.

via SciTechDaily|

#ai #cosmology #neutrinos

science29 days ago•3 min saved

JUNO Unveils Early Clues in the Neutrino Flavor Mystery

JUNO, a 20-ktonne underground detector in China, released two months of data showing precise measurements of how neutrinos change flavor and offering clues about their masses; the detector observes electron antineutrinos from nearby reactors via inverse beta decay and aims to resolve the neutrino-mass hierarchy, with cross-checks expected from Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE in the coming decade; findings published in Nature.

via ScienceAlert|

#antineutrinos #juno #neutrino-flavors

physics1 month ago•6 min saved

JUNO sharpens neutrino-oscillation picture, edging toward mass hierarchy

With about two months of data, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) measured two key reactor-neutrino oscillation parameters with 1.6× better precision than decades of previous experiments. The results, published in Nature, advance the effort to determine the neutrino mass ordering and shed light on the origin of neutrino masses, using a 20,000‑ton scintillator detector instrumented with 43,000 photomultiplier tubes observing reactor antineutrinos ~53 km away.

via Nature|

#juno #neutrino-mass #neutrino-oscillation

science1 month ago•14 min saved

China's JUNO detector reveals first major neutrino findings

China's Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) has released its first major neutrino findings from its underground detector, marking a milestone in the study of these elusive ghost particles.

via AP News|

#china #juno #neutrinos

space1 month ago•11 min saved

SN 1987A: Neutrinos Arrived First, Lighting Up a New Field

In SN 1987A, the exploding star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, detectors buried underground recorded about two dozen neutrinos arriving roughly three hours before the first photons reached Earth. The burst, observed by Kamiokande-II, IMB, and Baksan (with a contested earlier Mont Blanc signal), confirmed that core-collapse supernovae emit most of their energy as neutrinos and marked the birth of neutrino astronomy. The optical light lag varied by a couple of hours depending on when light is counted, and later Webb telescope work provided strong evidence for a newly formed neutron star at the remnant. For a future Galactic supernova, detectors would collect thousands of neutrino events, underscoring SN 1987A as a foundational multi-messenger milestone.

via Space Daily|

#astronomy #core-collapse #neutrinos

space1 month ago•74 min saved

Ultra-energetic neutrino hints at black-hole powered blazars as cosmic accelerators

Scientists traced an ultra-high-energy neutrino detected in 2023 to potential cosmic accelerators, with the event being about 30,000 times more energetic than previous neutrinos and observed by KM3NeT in the Mediterranean. Analyses suggest a population of black-hole–driven blazars could explain such bursts without violating gamma-ray background limits, though a single definitive source hasn’t been confirmed. More data from current and future detectors is needed to pin down the neutrino’s origin.

via Space|

#blackholes #blazars #highenergy

science1 month ago•10 min saved

Cosmic Voids: The Universe’s Quiet Labs for Big Questions

Cosmic voids—vast, underdense regions in the cosmic web—are becoming powerful cosmological laboratories for gravity, dark energy, and the Hubble tension. New surveys like DESI and Euclid will map tens of thousands to over 100,000 voids with high fidelity, while advanced simulations fill in their evolution. By tracing how galaxies and other tracers move through voids, scientists test gravity theories, study neutrinos, and sharpen our understanding of dark energy. Some researchers even speculate we may live in a colossal supervoid that could help explain the slightly faster local expansion rate, the Hubble tension. The next decade should decisively test these ideas and deepen our view of the universe.

via WIRED|

#cosmic-voids #cosmology #dark-energy