The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
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Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#2This blog post has a little more detail about the experiment and the physics behind it: https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/miniboone/
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#3The most likely explanation is an experimental error. The following quote of the article should give you a pause:
> But there are potential problems for the sterile neutrino interpretation: results from other neutrino experiments, such as IceCube and Minos, show no evidence for a particle of this kind.
As I understand, sterile neutrino explanation not only requires you to trust MiniBooNE, but also requires you to distrust IceCube and Minos. I don't see reasons to do so.
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#4The most likely explanation is an experimental error. The following quote of the article should give you a pause: > But there are potential problems for the sterile neutrino interpretation: results from other neutrino experiments, such as IceCube and Minos, show no evidence for a particle of this kind. As I understand, sterile neutrino explanation not only requires you to trust MiniBooNE, but also requires you to dis…
That’s not what I’ve read. Iirc, it’s opening the path for new physics. Where ever I read it, they indicated multiple experiments showing these sorts of results. (Read up on this topic last week so I’m hazy on details.)
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#5The most likely explanation is an experimental error. The following quote of the article should give you a pause: > But there are potential problems for the sterile neutrino interpretation: results from other neutrino experiments, such as IceCube and Minos, show no evidence for a particle of this kind. As I understand, sterile neutrino explanation not only requires you to trust MiniBooNE, but also requires you to dis…
That’s not what I’ve read. Iirc, it’s opening the path for new physics. Where ever I read it, they indicated multiple experiments showing these sorts of results. (Read up on this topic last week so I’m hazy on details.)
> Where ever I read it
Where indeed?
> multiple experiments
There are exactly two: LSND and MiniBooNE. I admit that's better than most other anomalies, since two experiments are quite different and you need to explain how they made compatible errors. Still, it's important to note that there are also multiple experiments against sterile neutrino explanation.
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#6The most likely explanation is an experimental error. The following quote of the article should give you a pause: > But there are potential problems for the sterile neutrino interpretation: results from other neutrino experiments, such as IceCube and Minos, show no evidence for a particle of this kind. As I understand, sterile neutrino explanation not only requires you to trust MiniBooNE, but also requires you to dis…
That’s not what I’ve read. Iirc, it’s opening the path for new physics. Where ever I read it, they indicated multiple experiments showing these sorts of results. (Read up on this topic last week so I’m hazy on details.)
Hi, neutrino physicist here. There are indeed a handful of results that point to a more-or-less consistent picture with sterile neutrinos, including MiniBooNE (now updated with 2x more data), LSND, antineutrinos from nuclear reactors, and calibrations of solar neutrino experiments (GALLEX/GNO and SAGE). All very different experiments with different uncertainties, which makes it hard to explain away. Meanwhile, there are a bunch of other experiments that should see this effect but don't (IceCube and MINOS, KARMEN, NOMAD, CDHS, CCFR, ...). With all this tension, most of the possible parameters for sterile neutrinos are ruled out, but there is still a little room. Next-generation experiments will go after the parameter space that remains, and definitively confirm/reject the sterile neutrino hypothesis at high confidence. See e.g. the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino Program, which puts a set of three detectors in the same neutrino beam as MiniBooNE: https://sbn.fnal.gov/.
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s not what I’ve read. Iirc, it’s opening the path for new physics. Where ever I read it, they indicated multiple experiments showing these sorts of results. (Read up on this topic last week so I’m hazy on details.)
Hi, neutrino physicist here. There are indeed a handful of results that point to a more-or-less consistent picture with sterile neutrinos, including MiniBooNE (now updated with 2x more data), LSND, antineutrinos from nuclear reactors, and calibrations of solar neutrino experiments (GALLEX/GNO and SAGE). All very different experiments with different uncertainties, which makes it hard to explain away. Meanwhile, there…
Hi, I have a couple of questions:
If I understand correctly, as far as we thought there seem to be 3 flavours of neutrino (electron, muon, tau neutrinos), and neutrinos carry (kinetic) energy (and possibly some rest mass).
Historically often "different" or "new" particles just turned out to be the same particle with different energy:
Cathode rays and electrons are the same thing, but nobody would describe the electron in hydrogen as a cathode ray orbitinng the proton.
Beta rays also turned out to be electrons, and similarily nobody describes the electron in hydrogen to be a beta ray orbiting the proton.
X-rays and gamma-rays are both photons, yet initially we did not know they were the same particle, just higher kinetic ennergy.
Now my question: how do we know the neutrino flavours aren't really the same particle but in some kind of different state, causing them to be differentially absorbed/detected?
consider red and blue light photons and pigments, the red light would only be absorbed by the blue pigment, and the blue light woud only be absorbed by the red pigment, but does that mean they are different particles?
How do we know a sterile neutrino isn't just one of the known neutrinos with little kinetic energy, or perhaps too much kinetic energy to interact?
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, neutrino physicist here. There are indeed a handful of results that point to a more-or-less consistent picture with sterile neutrinos, including MiniBooNE (now updated with 2x more data), LSND, antineutrinos from nuclear reactors, and calibrations of solar neutrino experiments (GALLEX/GNO and SAGE). All very different experiments with different uncertainties, which makes it hard to explain away. Meanwhile, there…
Hi, I have a couple of questions: If I understand correctly, as far as we thought there seem to be 3 flavours of neutrino (electron, muon, tau neutrinos), and neutrinos carry (kinetic) energy (and possibly some rest mass). Historically often "different" or "new" particles just turned out to be the same particle with different energy: Cathode rays and electrons are the same thing, but nobody would describe the electro…
By definition, neutrinos interact with weak force and sterile neutrinos don't.
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s not what I’ve read. Iirc, it’s opening the path for new physics. Where ever I read it, they indicated multiple experiments showing these sorts of results. (Read up on this topic last week so I’m hazy on details.)
Hi, neutrino physicist here. There are indeed a handful of results that point to a more-or-less consistent picture with sterile neutrinos, including MiniBooNE (now updated with 2x more data), LSND, antineutrinos from nuclear reactors, and calibrations of solar neutrino experiments (GALLEX/GNO and SAGE). All very different experiments with different uncertainties, which makes it hard to explain away. Meanwhile, there…
On reactor antineutrino anomaly, what do you think of https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00574 ? It seems to me both Daya Bay collaboration and RENO collaboration suggest anomaly is explained by nuclear fuel evolution.
Re: The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab may have found hints of a new particle
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, I have a couple of questions: If I understand correctly, as far as we thought there seem to be 3 flavours of neutrino (electron, muon, tau neutrinos), and neutrinos carry (kinetic) energy (and possibly some rest mass). Historically often "different" or "new" particles just turned out to be the same particle with different energy: Cathode rays and electrons are the same thing, but nobody would describe the electro…
By definition, neutrinos interact with weak force and sterile neutrinos don't.
What interactions are left then? Neutrinos don't interact with the electromagnetic or strong forces, and I don't think we can observe gravitational effects in an accelerator, so how are we detecting these sterile neutrinos?