{"id":323111,"date":"2025-12-03T17:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T17:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/323111\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T17:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T17:31:07","slug":"scientists-just-tore-up-a-major-particle-physics-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/323111\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Just Tore Up a Major Particle Physics Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists announced on Wednesday that they have found no evidence for the hypothetical \u201csterile neutrino,\u201d an extra version of the ghostly neutrino particles that are ubiquitous in the universe. The finding comes from the U.S. Department of Energy\u2013run Fermilab\u2019s MicroBooNE<\/a> experiment. Sterile neutrinos are a popular theoretical prediction because they could help explain the cosmos\u2019 mysterious dark matter, if they exist.<\/p>\n

The finding, which was published in Nature<\/a> on Wednesday, calls into question a popular explanation for anomalies<\/a> seen in past neutrino experiments<\/a> that couldn\u2019t be accounted for with existing physics. It could also hold major implications for the Standard Model, which is the best particle physics theory we have to explain how the universe works.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are making a very general statement, which is, you cannot just take the Standard Model, add a fourth neutrino and, in that way, explain any of the previous anomalies,\u201d says Justin Evans<\/a>, a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester in England and one of MicroBooNE\u2019s spokespeople.<\/p>\n

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Neutrinos come in three known flavors\u2014electron, muon and tau\u2014and can oscillate, or flip, between them. In the 1990s physicists observed these elusive particles oscillating in a way that seemed inconsistent with established theory. To explain the weird observations, physicists proposed that what they were observing was in fact a new, fourth kind of neutrino\u2014the sterile neutrino. But although the new results essentially rule that possibility out, they pose new, exciting questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear what our result is,\u201d says Matthew Toups<\/a>, a senior scientist at Fermilab. \u201cWhat is unclear to me is what the experiments that saw anomalies actually saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Importantly, the results don\u2019t fully take the prospect of an unknown fourth kind of neutrino off the table entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have lots of reasons to believe that there are more neutrino states,\u201d says Andr\u00e9 De Gouv\u00eaa<\/a>, a theoretical physicist at Northwestern University. A challenge, he says, is that physicists don\u2019t know if these other hypothetical neutrinos are detectable using current technology.<\/p>\n

The scientists at Fermilab hope their results will soon be validated by other neutrino experiments<\/a>. But already, their attention is turning to answering the bigger question posed by their findings: If it wasn\u2019t sterile neutrinos, then what caused the anomalies?<\/p>\n

One possible theory is that there may be a neutrino that decays before it gets to the detector, Evans says. Another possibility is that neutrinos interact with the detector in ways the scientists didn\u2019t already know about. There are yet other hypotheses. Ultimately, this enduring mystery is just one of the many enigmas<\/a> surrounding these elusive particles and their properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of very concrete things about neutrinos that we don’t know,\u201d De Gouv\u00eaa says. For one, can neutrinos help explain dark matter? \u201cMaybe the dark matter is secretly a sterile neutrino,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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