{"id":84012,"date":"2014-12-30T12:26:25","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T17:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=84012"},"modified":"2022-12-06T14:42:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T19:42:59","slug":"researchers-show-neutrinos-can-deliver-not-only-full-on-hits-but-also-glancing-blows-84012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/researchers-show-neutrinos-can-deliver-not-only-full-on-hits-but-also-glancing-blows-84012\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers show neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also ‘glancing blows’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In what they call a \u201cweird little corner\u201d of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence that these tiny particles might be involved in a surprising reaction.<\/p>\n

Neutrinos are famous for almost never interacting. As an example, ten trillion neutrinos pass through your hand every second, and fewer than one actually interacts with any of the atoms that make up your hand. However, when neutrinos do interact with another particle, it happens at very close distances and involves a high-momentum transfer.<\/p>\n

And yet a new paper, published in Physical Review Letters<\/em> this week<\/a>, shows that neutrinos sometimes can also interact with a nucleus but leave it basically untouched \u2013 inflicting no more than a \u201cglancing blow\u201d \u2013 resulting in a particle being created out of a vacuum.<\/p>\n

Professor Kevin McFarland is a scientific co-spokesperson with the international MINERvA collaboration, which carries out neutrino scattering experiments at Fermilab. McFarland, who also heads up the Rochester team that was primarily responsible for the analysis of the results, compares neutrino interactions to the firing of a bullet at a bubble, only to find the bubble was left intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bubble \u2013 a carbon nucleus in the experiment \u2013 deflects the neutrino \u2018bullet\u2019 by creating a particle from the vacuum,\u201d McFarland explains. \u201cThis effectively shields the bubble from getting blasted apart and instead the bullet only delivers a gentle bump to the bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Producing an entirely new particle \u2013 in this case a charged pion \u2013 requires much more energy than it would take to blast the nucleus apart \u2013 which is why the physicists are always surprised that the reaction happens as often as it does. McFarland adds that even painstakingly detailed theoretical calculations for this reaction \u201chave been all over the map.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe production of pions from this reaction had not been observed consistently in other experiments,\u201d McFarland said. By using a new technique, they were able to measure how much momentum and energy were transferred to the carbon nucleus \u2013 showing that it remained undisturbed \u2013 and the distribution of the pions that were created.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter analyzing the results, we now have overwhelming evidence for the process,\u201d McFarland says.<\/p>\n

The two members of the collaboration who were primarily responsible for analyzing the results were Aaron Higuera, at the time a postdoc at Rochester and now at the University of Houston, and Aaron Mislivec, one of McFarland\u2019s doctoral\u00a0students.<\/p>\n

Working with Higuera, Mislivec wrote the computer code that allowed them to sift through the results and get a picture of the reaction. \u201cOur detector gave us access to the full information of exactly what was happening in this reaction,\u201d Mislivec explains. “Our data was consistent with the unique fingerprint of this reaction and determined how these interactions happen and how often.” The key to identifying the reaction was finding undisturbed carbon nuclei and then studying the two resulting particles \u2013 the pion, which is responsible for shielding the nucleus, and the muon.<\/p>\n

Understanding this reaction, McFarland states, \u201cis not going to make a better mousetrap, but it is exciting to learn that this weird reaction really does take place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers in the MINERvA collaboration measure low energy neutrino interactions both to support neutrino oscillation experiments and study the strong dynamics of the nucleon and nucleus that affect the interactions.<\/p>\n

The work is funded by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and partnering scientific agencies in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Switzerland, Peru and Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what they call a \u201cweird little corner\u201d of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence that these tiny particles might be involved in a surprising reaction. In an experiment conducted with the international MINERvA collaboration at Fermilab, physics professor Kevin McFarland and his students and colleagues provide evidence that neutrinos can sometimes interact with a nucleus but leave it basically untouched, resulting in a new particle being created out of a vacuum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":84042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[18662,8866,18572,16072],"class_list":["post-84012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","tag-department-of-physics-and-astronomy","tag-kevin-mcfarland","tag-research-finding","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":{"external":"","hide_featured_image":false,"related":"show_related","style":"","content_modules":null},"yoast_head":"\nResearchers show neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also 'glancing blows'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/researchers-show-neutrinos-can-deliver-not-only-full-on-hits-but-also-glancing-blows-84012\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Researchers show neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also 'glancing blows'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In what they call a \u201cweird little corner\u201d of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence that these tiny particles might be involved in a surprising reaction. 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