Indication of Neutrino Transformation Observed 128
AmiMoJo writes "A Japanese research group says it has observed for the first time an indication that a type of neutrino can change into another type. The group generated a large amount of neutrinos at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex, or J-PARC, in the prefecture's Tokai Village, and aimed them at the Super-Kamiokande observatory in Gifu Prefecture about 300 kilometers away, to look for neutrino oscillation. As a result, the group observed that muon neutrinos can change into electron neutrinos."
Re:proof (Score:4, Insightful)
Only a very small fraction of neutrinos are captured by any detector. Most pass through without interaction. It's not possible to produce a neutrino, and swear that you have actually captured that particular neutrino at another spot. What the Japanese did is ran a procedure that created only (or at least predominately) a particular type of neutrino, and looked to see if the neutrinos arriving at the detector were all the same type (or types). Since the detector was also capturing the normal amount of neutrinos from other sources, such as the sun, in the normal mix of types, all that could be determined was that the total percentages of various types was either going to match all the other natural sources plus a spike in the one type emitted, or it wasn't, in which case some of the neutrinos from the source were changing phase.
Anonymous Coward, again putting the A and C into character assassination.
Re:proof (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily. They could be different neutrinos, caused by atoms in the way absorbing some neutrinos and emitting others.
It's not entirely an oversimplification to say "that won't happen" - solar neutrinos pass straight through the Earth for example. (See the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org])