Astronomers Have Traced Mysterious Neutrinos Again to Erupting Supermassive Black Holes
Neutrinos are mysterious and elusive particles. They’ve a tiny mass, no electrical cost, and so they work together with different matter solely not often. They’re additionally extraordinarily frequent.
At any second, about 100 billion neutrinos are streaming by each sq. centimeter of your physique. Neutrinos have been produced by the large bang, and are nonetheless being produced by the whole lot from stars to supernovae.
One of many newer neutrino mysteries began when some neutrinos have been detected by the ANtarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA). Not like most neutrino detectors which can be giant, delicate arrays, ANITA is a radio detector suspended by a balloon. It may well solely detect high-energy neutrinos after they strike Antarctic ice to create a burst of radio mild.
ANITA. (NASA Goddard)
Earlier this 12 months ANITA detected unusual indicators that gave the impression to be triggered by extraordinarily excessive power neutrinos. These neutrinos had such excessive energies that they appeared to defy the usual mannequin of particle physics.
Excessive power neutrinos have additionally been detected by the IceCube neutrino detector in Antarctica. These aren’t fairly as energetic as those detected by ANITA, however they may present clues as to how high-energy neutrinos are produced.
Just lately a crew checked out one attainable supply: the supermassive black holes of quasars.
How excessive power particles will be produced. (Science China Press)
Supermassive black holes are gravitational powerhouses. When sizzling gasoline surrounding them is squeezed by gravity and electromagnetic fields, it may possibly emit large quantities of power, together with high-energy neutrinos.
So the crew in contrast 4 dozen IceCube neutrino detections with radio observations from the Russian RATAN-600 radio telescope. They discovered that neutrinos have been detected at occasions when a quasar skilled a radio flare.
The most certainly rationalization is that when quasars are notably lively, bursts of gamma rays are produced throughout the radio flare. The gamma rays collide with surrounding atoms, triggering a burst of neutrinos.
For the reason that neutrinos journey at almost the pace of sunshine, they arrive at Earth concurrently the radio burst.
That is solely an preliminary research, and it solves a part of the high-energy neutrino thriller. We now know a method that these neutrinos will be produced, however the origin of essentially the most energetic of neutrinos stays unknown.
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