Jul 12, 2022
Physicists May Have Stumbled Upon an Entirely New Elementary Particle
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: cosmology, particle physics
The sterile neutrino, if it truly exists, only answers to gravity.
Physicists are spelunking the complex findings from an experimental particle reactor found a mile below the surface in the mountains of Russia. What they found has the potential to send an earthquake through the bedrock of the standard model of physics itself: the results could confirm a new elementary particle, called a “sterile neutrino,” or demonstrate a need to revise a portion of the standard model.
The research comes from New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in collaboration with the Baksan Neutrino Observatory near the Georgia border in far southwestern Russia. The scientists outlined their findings in two new papers published last month in the journals Physical Review Letters and Physical Review C.
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