
Evidence Found for a New Fundamental Particle - haxiomic
https://www.quantamagazine.org/evidence-found-for-a-new-fundamental-particle-20180601/
======
njarboe
Neutrinos almost never interact with matter. The closet supernova in recent
history[1] was detected via neutrinos with 11 observed. I can't imagine the
number of photons from that event that would have hit a similar sized detector
on the earths surface.

[1][https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.58...](https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.58.1490)

~~~
frumiousirc
Knowing the relative energy carried away from the supernova by photons and by
neutrinos (1:100), photon and neutrino energy spectra, neutrino cross section
and the size of the IMB and Kamiokande detectors you can estimate the flux of
photons through some hypothetical light detector (sometimes called a
"telescope"). Probably some model for interstellar gas is needed to account
for scatter or absorb the photons.

------
abnry
Particle physics is just crazy land to me. I understand Newton's equations. I
understand Maxwell's equations. Hey, I even understand Schroedinger's
equation. But all these particles!?

~~~
empath75
Particles are ‘just’ perturbations in the underlying fields. If you understand
field equations you should understand that.

~~~
buvanshak
What is a field?

~~~
dwaltrip
It's a mathematical construct that is a core part of the theory physicists use
to make highly accurate predictions about many of the low-level dynamics of
reality.

It seems to usually be visualized as 2d plane-like sheet that can oscillate,
and those oscillations represent particles. In reality it should be 3d, but
that is much harder to draw.

~~~
buvanshak
So if objects are just perturbation in a field, and field is a mathematical
construct, just like the concept of a number, or a line or a circle, then
isn't it meaning less to look for a start for the existence of a field, and
hence the whole universe?

~~~
boomboomsubban
No, for a couple of reasons. It's a mathematical construct used to describe
observed phenomena, the phenomena itself isn't necessarily that similar to the
construct. Further, it may be a terrible description.

~~~
posterboy
A sinus is a field, deductively reduced to lower dimensions, e.g. a slice cut
of a sound wave. Waves on the sea form a wave field, figuratively, and it
extends to the bottom of the sea. Whereas a quantum field is a consequence of
the Schroedinger Wave equation positing that the potential to observe a
particle is distributed in space. As far as I know that's purely virtual,
because observation of the particle collapses the potential. The crux is, the
observation is not exact; The location of the particle is a probability
distribution over a field as well. So ... it's fields all the way down. I'm
not an expert, just stipulating.

------
cozzyd
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.12028](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.12028) is the
arxiv link.

------
acqq
I like this comment (with the nice explanation of the experiment):

[http://www.science20.com/tommaso_dorigo/miniboone_confirms_n...](http://www.science20.com/tommaso_dorigo/miniboone_confirms_neutrino_anomaly-232739)

Author's take:

"The simple collecting more data and making the result stronger from a
statistical standpoint in these cases does not help convince your peer: as I
said, this is systematic in nature, so the problem has to be attacked by other
means."

On one side he is "an experimental particle physicist who works for the INFN
at the University of Padova, and collaborates with the CMS experiment at the
CERN LHC" but also writes "I am not a true expert in these matters so my
comments would probably be deceiving or plain fallacious."

For him, it seems there is still a need for some other kind of approach before
something more specific than "the apparent excess was consistently measured
through the years" can be claimed.

------
mchahn
> In its 15-year run, MiniBooNE has registered a few hundred more electron
> neutrinos than expected.

Wow. How could this be significant? (Not arguing).

~~~
twtw
They were expecting to see about 1600 events, and instead they saw about 2000
events. The significance of the excess in miniboone is therefore around 4.5
sigma.

------
ogennadi
> The persistence of the neutrino anomaly is extremely exciting, said the
> physicist Scott Dodelson of Carnegie Mellon University.

> The existence of a sterile neutrino would revolutionize physics from the
> smallest to the largest scales. It would finally break the Standard Model of
> particle physics that has reigned since the 1970s.

------
juliangamble
My physics teacher used to say:

 _" Whenever physicists don't understand something - they invent a new
particle"_

~~~
analog31
Indeed, it's been a pretty fruitful approach. Physicists propose new particles
for a variety of reasons. Though they weren't fully recognized as "particles"
at the time, gaps in the early periodic table could be thought of as missing
particles in a sense.

An apparent consistent failure of conservation laws in a collision experiment
could be described as a "particle" if the failure has a quantitative
regularity that's consistent with an un-detected particle.

Particles can be proposed to identify a way that a new theory can be tested --
the Higgs and the graviton are in this category. Given a choice, physicists
prefer to explore theories that can yield experimental predictions, and
particle detection is an area where theories can be tested with decent
sensitivity, albeit at some cost.

~~~
leetbulb
I don't know much about particle physics, but this is a really nice way to
think about "particles". Thank you!

------
prakster
Wonder what will it take for Deepak Chopra to stop his quantum psychobabble.
Even this didn't do it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXewVWUKAM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXewVWUKAM)

~~~
nixpulvis
Oh god, watching that made me lose all faith in both sides. Maybe this is why
he's so obsessed with the circle ;)

