Astronomers consider the Pacific Ocean a potential site for a neutrino detector.

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Ghostly particles could be seen in a remote area of the ocean.

One of the most enigmatic particles in the cosmos is the neutrino, which is second only to dark matter in terms of elusiveness. Weak nuclear force participants and nuclear fusion and decay producers are produced in large quantities. In other words, neutrinos are engaged in all nuclear processes.

Nuclear fusion reactions such as the sun produce large quantities of neutrinos as byproducts. According to previous studies, if you hold your thumb up to the sun, almost 60 billion neutrinos per second will flow through your thumb.

Although millions upon trillions of neutrinos flow through your body every second, the total number of neutrinos that reach your body in your lifetime is roughly... one.

Given their ethereal appearance, physicists for decades concluded neutrinos had no mass and were speeding through the universe at the speed of light. It wasn't until mountains of evidence began to build that scientists realized neutrinos have some mass.

Scientific investigation is ongoing into the precise mass of an object. A neutrino is a subatomic particle with three types: electron, muon, and tau neutrinos. Three distinct neutrinos "flavors" exist, and each participates in a distinct type of nuclear reaction. Unfortunately, all three neutrino types can change their identities as they travel. Even if you observe a neutrino and determine its type, you only know a fraction of what you wished you knew.

Whistling in the wind

As far as we know, the Standard Model of particle physics does not explain neutrinos' mass. Physicists are eager to learn two things: how massless the three types of neutrinos are and what causes them to be so massless. They'll have to conduct many experiments as a result of this.

Most neutrino detectors are simple: You either set up a mechanism to manufacture a ludicrous quantity of the buggers in a laboratory, or you build a vast array to collect some that originate outside the Earth.

Every generation has seen a significant increase in the size and scope of these trials. For example, the neutrinos from supernova 1987A were famously detected by the Kamiokande experiment in Japan. To accomplish this, they needed more than 50,000 tons of water.

Recent years have seen an increase in activity at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which is located on the continent of Antarctica. Observatories at North and South Poles have receivers and antennae the size of the Eiffel Towers, each of which is embedded in the ice for a depth of one km (0.24 miles). This is the first real progress in understanding the origins of extremely energetic neutrinos that IceCube has made in almost a decade of research. As a side note, blazars exemplify this type of high-energy phenomenon in the universe.

Both Kamiokande and IceCube consume a disproportionate amount of water for their purposes. A neutrino detector can be made from almost anything, but the best material is pure water. One of the millions of passing neutrinos causes a flash of light when it strikes a water molecule randomly. Because of the water's purity, photoreceptors can distinguish the exact location, angle, and strength of the flash. The water must be free of contaminants to determine where the flash originated within the volume.

They can then use this information to retrace the neutrino's path and gain a sense of its energy.

neutrino patch in the Pacific Ocean

This is fine and dandy if you're dealing with regular neutrinos. Exceptionally, though, are the most energetic neutrinos. However, those incredibly rare neutrinos are also the most thrilling and interesting because they can only be created by the universe's most enormously powerful events, which are extremely rare.

After a decade of observation, the full power of IceCube has only been able to capture a few of these extremely powerful neutrinos.

Hence, a larger vessel is required... By detector, I mean.

If this seems like something you'd like to see in action, you're in luck: a new proposal, the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P-ONE), was published on the arXiv preprint server in November.

This time, it's only a matter of finding a quiet spot in the Pacific. It's a cinch to do. At least a kilometer of photodetectors should be constructed. These strands should be sunk over a mile into the ocean (2 km). Take the shape of artificial kelp and attach floats to it, so it stands upright in the water.

All seven 10-string clusters in the present P-ONE architecture include 20 optical elements per string. To put that in perspective, more than 1,400 photodetectors are spread out over an area of the Pacific several miles wide.

The only thing you have to do is sit back and wait. Even neutrinos will give off a flare of light when they hit ocean water, and detectors will be able to track it.

It is, of course, more difficult than it appears. The strands will be continually shifting, swaying with the currents of the water. The Pacific Ocean, on the other hand, is tainted by salt, plankton, and fish waste. As a result of this, precise measurements will become more difficult.

A continuous calibration is needed to account for these variations and accurately track neutrinos. On the other hand, the P-ONE team is already working on a smaller, two-strand prototype to demonstrate the concept.

After that, we'll be able to search for neutrinos.

Reference : https://www.livescience.com/neutrino-detector-in-pacific-ocean

Image source : https://pixabay.com/id/vectors/astronom-teleskop-amatir-astronomi-154978/

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