How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries

#31

Post by peteradio » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

atlasland wrote: post #23

blackflame wrote: post #2

The Neutrino has always fascinated me since I first learned about particles. It's almost not of this realm with the way it interacts with matter compared to everything else.

I'm curious if there's new physics underway that may make neutrino interactions at a large scale feasible. Experiments that I know usually detect one to five neutrinos a year and I'm wondering if we could ever come up with method that can capture orders of magnitude more than that

Would need to make ultra dense materials which would require subatomic engineering.

Re: How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries

#32

Post by at_a_remove » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

graycat wrote: post #20

Herrin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few interesting things that we could get from looking at neutrino masses. The first has to do more with the nature of the mass than the mass itself. In the standard model, electrons, muons, and taus get their mass from the Higgs field. There's a way for neutrinos to get their mass in other ways, but it requires them to be their own antiparticles. And this gives a satisfactory answer as to why their masses…

Q. So, an atom decays and gives off some particles including a neutrino. So, we look at the mass-energy arithmetic before and after the decay and see that it all adds up but does need the tiny mass-energy of a neutrino. That fact, that small difference, seems curious, maybe toward new physics ? That is, somehow maybe the mass-energy amounts are, once again in science, whole number multiples of something small. If so,…

It's a bit different than that. The decay of a neutron into a proton and an electron conserved charge, mass-energy (to an expected degree), and momentum. However, spin was not conserved. The neutrino was dreamed up as kind of a placeholder for the spin. However, it turned out that it was a real thing!

The mass-energy arithmetic should not be the thing you look at for a couple of reasons. First, it's quite difficult to measure with exactitude. Second, the binding energy for particles and their constituents plays a part that is easily within error bounds.

Re: How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries

#33

Post by millstone » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

atlasland wrote: post #21

Koshkin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, generally speaking, in the world of elementary particles there may be other kinds of interactions (and decay paths) as well as the good old mechanical energy - all waiting to be converted into the electromotive force.

Are there new types of interactions underway that may make neutrinos interaction feasible?

A hypothetical idea is to direct a neutrino beam at the core of a pulsating star, which modulates its frequency and allows for efficient interstellar communication.

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2011/04/07/...

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0809.0339.pdf is the paper

Re: How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries

#34

Post by blackflame » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #31

atlasland wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if there's new physics underway that may make neutrino interactions at a large scale feasible. Experiments that I know usually detect one to five neutrinos a year and I'm wondering if we could ever come up with method that can capture orders of magnitude more than that

Would need to make ultra dense materials which would require subatomic engineering.

Would such a thing even be attainable on earth without the tremendous forces that collapse atoms into neutrons? Does matter in a neutron density state convert back to atomic density state in the absence of such forces?

Re: How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries

#35

Post by Herrin » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

FreeFull wrote: post #26

Herrin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few interesting things that we could get from looking at neutrino masses. The first has to do more with the nature of the mass than the mass itself. In the standard model, electrons, muons, and taus get their mass from the Higgs field. There's a way for neutrinos to get their mass in other ways, but it requires them to be their own antiparticles. And this gives a satisfactory answer as to why their masses…

If there are more generations of neutrinos, would that also imply extra generations of the charged leptons?

It's a reasonable hypothesis. But the new physics might also lie in why we don't see more than 3 generations of charged leptons or quarks.

Re: How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries

#36

Post by graycat » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:21 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #32

graycat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q. So, an atom decays and gives off some particles including a neutrino. So, we look at the mass-energy arithmetic before and after the decay and see that it all adds up but does need the tiny mass-energy of a neutrino. That fact, that small difference, seems curious, maybe toward new physics ? That is, somehow maybe the mass-energy amounts are, once again in science, whole number multiples of something small. If so,…

It's a bit different than that. The decay of a neutron into a proton and an electron conserved charge, mass-energy (to an expected degree), and momentum. However, spin was not conserved. The neutrino was dreamed up as kind of a placeholder for the spin. However, it turned out that it was a real thing! The mass-energy arithmetic should not be the thing you look at for a couple of reasons. First, it's quite difficult t…

Thanks.

> First, it's quite difficult to measure with exactitude.

I wondered about something like that -- the mechanism really is exact to tiny accuracy, no fuzz, but it's super tough actually to measure that accurately, or some such. If my startup works, I'll return to physics!!! I promise!! Thanks.

Re: How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries

#37

Post by peteradio » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

blackflame wrote: post #34

peteradio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would need to make ultra dense materials which would require subatomic engineering.

Would such a thing even be attainable on earth without the tremendous forces that collapse atoms into neutrons? Does matter in a neutron density state convert back to atomic density state in the absence of such forces?

I think it would be unstable in general but perhaps some shielding could be created to help but even so it seems like strong forces would need to be used to hold the ultradense target together.