Central to many unsolved mysteries in physics are tiny, weakly interacting particles that require heavy-lift detection methods. This makes them difficult to visualize, so scientists find roundabout ways to track particle movement, typically using giant, expensive machines that take time to process data. But one proposal\u2014a smaller, camera-like prototype\u2014aims to solve these issues.<\/p>\n
In a recent Nature Communications<\/a> study, researchers from ETH Zurich and EPFL in Switzerland report results from the first prototype of an alternative particle detector that \u201cenables ultrafast three-dimensional high-resolution imaging,\u201d according to the paper. The demonstrator, called PLATON, is a monolithic detection system comprised of a scintillator block and a 3D camera. The setup is simple, but a combination of original software and neural networks helps enhance the resolution of the 3D image.<\/p>\n \u201cThe result is a simplification of the construction of a particle detector and, maybe surprisingly, the excellent 3D spatial resolution that can be achieved [with the simple setup],\u201d Davide Sgalaberna<\/a>, a physicist at ETH Zurich and CERN, told Gizmodo in an email. \u201cOur demonstrator opens the path to a completely new approach to detect neutrinos and, more in general, elementary particles.\u201d<\/p>\n Neutrinos are chargeless, near-massless particles that exist in extreme abundance in the universe. Dubbed \u201cghost particles,\u201d they\u2019re important because, despite their abundance, they are so difficult to detect that there\u2019s not much physicists know for certain about them.<\/p>\n Practically speaking, the earliest application of PLATON will be as a full-body scanner for medical purposes. However, it\u2019s easily scalable, so it should\u00a0eventually prove itself useful in particle physics, the team explained in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tracking the near-invisible <\/p>\n Scintillators<\/a> are materials that convert high-energy radiation, such as X-rays or gamma rays, into visible or near-visible light. In particle physics, scintillating materials in a detector convert<\/a> radiation from tiny, high-energy particles into light signals. These \u201ccalorimeters\u201d stop particles and measure their energy loss, giving researchers the information they need to analyze their behavior, according to CERN<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually, to 3D track this multitude of particles in the scintillator, you have to segment the scintillator into many tiny voxels (e.g., 1 cm\u00b3 cubes) between several thousand and millions,\u201d Sgalaberna explained. \u201cHowever, the size of the voxels, [or] the granularity of the segmentation, limits the spatial resolution of the image.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, top institutions employ a massive number of scintillators (which aren\u2019t necessarily solid<\/a>\u00a0all the time). For instance, the T2K experiment<\/a> in Japan has about two tons of scintillating materials in the form of two million cubes and 60,000 optical fibers. CERN\u2019s gigantic detectors also boast millions of thin, scintillating optical fibers. That gives physicists top-notch data, but what if these setups could be simpler?<\/p>\n Tech plus tech <\/p>\n