University of Wisconsin | IceCube | 2016 Aug 08
[c][attachment=0]news_attachment.file.8e09abde451be5a3.5374696c6c365f4d61747465724566666563747353746572696c6556734d756f6e4e65757472696e6f5f63726f702e706e67[1].png[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]In an effort to fill in the blanks of the Standard Model of particle physics, science has been conducting a diligent search for a hypothesized particle known as the “sterile neutrino.”
Now, with the latest results from an icy particle detector at the South Pole, scientists are almost certain that there is no such particle.
If discovered, the sterile neutrino would have added to the neutrino family portrait and helped explain a number of puzzles that suggest the existence of more than the three known flavors of neutrinos. Ultimately, such a particle could also help resolve the mystery of the origin of dark matter and the matter/antimatter asymmetry in the universe.
Neutrinos are ghostly particles with almost no mass and only rarely interact with matter. Trillions of neutrinos will course through your body in the time it takes to read this sentence. There are three known types of neutrinos: muon, electron and tau. Hints of a possible fourth type of neutrino have come from several experiments. Known as the “sterile neutrino,” the hypothesized particle would not interact at all with matter except, possibly, through gravity.
Discovering the sterile neutrino would also throw a wrench into the Standard Model, which allows for only the three known types of neutrino. ...
The Long Hunted Sterile Neutrino Cannot Be Traced
Niels Bohr Institute | University of Copenhagen | 2016 Aug 08
Searches for Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Detector - IceCube Collaboration
- Physical Review Letters 117(7):1801 (12 Aug 2016) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.071801
arXiv.org > hep-ex > arXiv:1605.01990 > 06 May 2016