Neutrino Morphing Discovery Could Unlock Mysteries of the Universe. Posted July 23rd, 2013 at 6:47 pm (UTC+0) The three types of neutrino: electron neutrino (red), muon neutrino (green) and electron (blue). The directional arrows indicate how each can morph into different types. (T2K Experiment) Scientists meeting in Stockholm say they’ve confirmed that subatomic particles known as neutrinos have the ability to morph from one type of the particle into another.
The finding could one day help scientists explain why the universe contains matter but very little antimatter. Neutrinos, one of the fundamental building blocks of matter, come in three distinct types or flavors: electron, muon or tau. Scientists produced a beam of muon neutrinos at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) near Japan’s east coast and aimed it at the gigantic Super-Kamiokande underground detector in Kamioka, 295 km away, near Japan’s west coast. Of Particular Significance | Conversations About Science with Theoretical Physicist Matt Strassler. Super-Kamiokande Official Homepage. Cosmic Background Explorer. The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), also referred to as Explorer 66, was a satellite dedicated to cosmology. Its goals were to investigate the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) of the universe and provide measurements that would help shape our understanding of the cosmos.
This work provided evidence that supported the Big Bang theory of the universe: that the CMB was a near-perfect black-body spectrum and that it had very faint anisotropies. Two of COBE's principal investigators, George Smoot and John Mather, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for their work on the project. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE-project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science".[1] History[edit] In 1974, NASA issued an Announcement of Opportunity for astronomical missions that would use a small- or medium-sized Explorer spacecraft.
Launch of the COBE spacecraft November 18, 1989. Spacecraft[edit] Scientific findings[edit] DIRBE[edit] Planck's law. Planck's law (colored curves) accurately described black body radiation and resolved the ultraviolet catastrophe (black curve). Planck's law describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium at a definite temperature. The law is named after Max Planck, who originally proposed it in 1900. It is a pioneer result of modern physics and quantum theory. For frequency ν, or for wavelength λ, Planckian radiation can be described thus: or where B denotes its spectral radiance, T its absolute temperature, kB the Boltzmann constant, h the Planck constant, and c the speed of light in the medium, whether material or vacuum.[1][2][3] The SI units are W·sr−1·m−2·Hz−1 for Bν(T) and W·sr−1·m−3 for Bλ(T).
The law may also be expressed in other terms, such as of the number of photons emitted at a certain wavelength, or of the energy density in a volume of radiation. Introduction[edit] Every physical body spontaneously and continuously emits electromagnetic radiation. Here. International Linear Collider. An overview graphic of the planned ILC based on the accelerator design of the Technical Design Report The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed linear particle accelerator.[1] It is planned to have a collision energy of 500 GeV initially, with the possibility for a later upgrade to 1000 GeV (1 TeV).
The host country for the accelerator has not yet been chosen and proposed locations are Japan, Europe (CERN) and the USA (Fermilab).[2] Japan is considered the most likely candidate, as the Japanese government is willing to contribute half of the costs, according to the coordinator of study for detectors at the ILC .[3] Construction could begin in 2015 or 2016 and will not be completed before 2026.[4] Studies for an alternative project called CLIC the Compact Linear Collider are also underway, which would operate at higher energies (up to 3 TeV) in a machine with comparable length as the ILC. The ILC would collide electrons with positrons. Comparison with LHC[edit] Design[edit] Stellar nucleosynthesis. Stellar nucleosynthesis is the process by which the natural abundances of the chemical elements assemble in the cores of stars.
Stars are said to evolve (age) with changes in the abundances of the elements within. Stars lose most of their mass when it is ejected late in their stellar lifetimes, thereby increasing the abundance of elements heavier than helium in the interstellar medium. The term supernova nucleosynthesis is used to describe the creation of elements during the explosion of a star. The primary stimulus to the development of the theory of nucleosynthesis was the variations in the abundances of elements found in the universe.
Those abundances, when plotted on a graph as a function of atomic number of the element, have a jagged sawtooth shape that varies by factors of tens of millions. History[edit] In 1920, Arthur Eddington, on the basis of the precise measurements of atoms by F.W. [edit] Cross section of a red giant showing nucleosynthesis and elements formed. Sloan Digital Sky Survey.