Latest news with #neutrinos
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Physicists can't explain mysterious radio wave emissions in Antarctica
For nearly two decades, balloons carrying highly sensitive atmospheric instruments have drifted more than 25 miles above one of the world's most remote regions. The floating array is the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, a project overseen by an international group of researchers tasked with measuring some of the universe's oldest and hardest-to-detect cosmic rays. Specifically, the team is hunting for neutrinos—particles with no charge that also possess the smallest known subatomic mass. But according to their recent report, ANITA has repeatedly picked up some truly weird signals that defy explanation. 'The [radio pulses] appear inconsistent with the standard model of particle physics,' the study's authors wrote for the journal Physical Review Letters. Neutrino signals are everywhere, and originate from high-energy sources like our sun, supernovae, and the Big Bang. Billions of the particles are passing through a space the size of your thumbnail at any given time—but that doesn't make them easy to find. That's because they generally don't interact with their surroundings, meaning trying to find them is similar to searching for subatomic needles in a cosmic haystack. 'This is [a] double-edged sword problem,' Penn State University associate professor of physics, astronomy, and astrophysics and study co-author Stephanie Wissel said in a statement. '[But] if we detect them, it means they have traveled all this way without interacting with anything else. We could be detecting a neutrino coming from the edge of the observable universe.'Neutrinos travel at nearly the speed of light, and tracing them back to their sources can offer more data than even some of today's most powerful space telescopes. Wissel has spent years codesigning experiments to identify neutrinos, and that's where systems like ANITA come into play. Once deployed, ANITA's radio antenna balloons are pointed back down to the ice where there is very little chance of signal interference. Wissel and colleagues then wait for radio emissions as neutrinos interact with the Earth's frozen surface. The team is particularly focused on tau neutrinos. These are specifically affected by the Antarctic ice and subsequently release secondary subatomic particles called tau leptons during emission events known as air showers. Although invisible to the human eye, Wissel likens the showers to waving a sparkler in one direction as the sparks shoot away from it. Despite their infinitesimal size, physicists distinguish between ice and air shower emissions, identify particle attributes, and even trace them back to their origin site. But that's only if they obey the known laws of physics—and a handful of particles aren't doing that in Antarctica. 'The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice,' said Wissel. Further calculations indicated the anomalies would have needed to pass through and potentially interact with thousands of miles of rock to get to them. This should mean that their signals were undetectable—and yet ANITA still flagged them. Researchers then cross-referenced these readings with other detector projects but didn't find anything to help explain the data, leading them to classify them as 'anomalous.' Although some experts have suggested the signals could relate to the universe's elusive dark matter, there currently aren't enough follow-up observations to explain the weirdness. But if nothing else, the team is pretty confident the signals aren't their intended targets. 'It's an interesting problem because we still don't actually have an explanation for what those anomalies are, but what we do know is that they're most likely not representing neutrinos,' she added. Wissel's team is currently designing a new aerial neutrino detector called the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO). Larger and more fine-tuned than ANITA, PUEO should be even better at flagging. In the process, it may also help to solve the identity of the physics-defying signals. 'My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effect occurs near ice and also near the horizon that I don't fully understand… [but] we haven't been able to find any of those yet either,' said Wissel. 'So, right now, it's one of these long-standing mysteries.'
Gizmodo
14 hours ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
Scientists in Antarctica Detect Deep-Earth Signals That Defy Known Physics
A balloon-borne experiment over Antarctica, designed to detect cosmic radio waves, has instead picked up bizarre signals that appear to be coming from deep within the ice. These signals challenge our current understanding of particle physics, scientists say. The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment consists of radio antennas flown on NASA balloons 19 to 24 miles (30 to 39 kilometers) over the surface of Antarctica. In recent years, the detector has recorded radio pulses that seemed to rise up through the Earth. ANITA detected these signals at 'really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice,' co-author Stephanie Wissel, an associate professor of physics at Penn State, said in a university statement. This suggests that the radio pulses traveled up through 6,000 to 7,000 kilometers (3,700 to 4,300 miles) of solid rock to reach the detector—which shouldn't be possible. According to current models of particle physics, these radio pulses should have been completely absorbed by the rock, making detection impossible. 'It's an interesting problem because we still don't actually have an explanation for what those anomalies are,' Wissel said. She and her colleagues published their findings in the journal Physical Review Letters in March. ANITA's overarching goal is to gather information about deep space events by analyzing signals that reach Earth. This experiment plays a pivotal role in the search for neutrinos—elusive particles with no charge and the smallest mass of all subatomic particles. Neutrinos are abundant throughout the universe—they're constantly passing through us—and they usually come from high-energy sources like the Sun or supernovae. The problem is that their signals are very difficult to detect, according to Wissel. ANITA aims to overcome this challenge by sniffing out the radio emissions neutrinos emit when they interact with Antarctic ice. As the balloon-borne detector flies over stretches of ice, it looks for 'ice showers,' cascades of particles triggered by neutrinos hitting surface ice. These particle showers produce radio signals that ANITA can detect. Ice-interacting neutrinos also produce a secondary particle called a tau lepton that gradually breaks down and loses energy. This decay triggers another type of emission known as an 'air shower.' Researchers can distinguish between ice and air showers to characterize the particle that created the signal, then trace the signal back to its origin. But the unusually sharp angle of the anomalous signals ruled out the possibility that they were coming from ice-interacting neutrinos or the tau leptons they produce. Wissel and her colleagues analyzed data from multiple ANITA flights and compared it to mathematical models and simulations of both cosmic rays and air showers. This allowed them to eliminate the possibility of ANITA detecting other known particle-based signals. Next, the researchers compared the ANITA data to findings from other major neutrino detectors such as the IceCube Experiment and the Pierre Auger Observatory to see if they had captured similar anomalies. They still didn't find an answer. The other detectors did not register anything that could explain ANITA's anomalies. The only thing Wissel and her colleagues can say for certain is that the particles causing the strange signals are not neutrinos. Hopefully, the next big detector will reveal more information about these anomalies. At Penn State, Wissel's team is designing and building the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observation (PUEO) mission. This new detector will be larger and better at detecting neutrino signals, according to Wissel. She's already forming an early hypothesis about the nature of these anomalies. 'My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effect occurs near ice and also near the horizon that I don't fully understand, but we certainly explored several of those, and we haven't been able to find any of those yet either,' Wissel said. 'So, right now, it's one of these long-standing mysteries, and I'm excited that when we fly PUEO, we'll have better sensitivity. In principle, we should pick up more anomalies, and maybe we'll actually understand what they are. We also might detect neutrinos, which would in some ways be a lot more exciting.'
Daily Mail
21 hours ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scientists are BAFFLED by mysterious radio signals coming from beneath Antarctica's ice
Scientists have discovered mysterious radio signals emerging from deep beneath Antarctica's ice. The strange radio pulses were detected by the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA), an array of instruments designed to detect elusive particles called neutrinos. Rather than detecting these cosmic particles, the researchers were baffled to find signals emerging from the ice at seemingly impossible angles. Worryingly, they have no idea what could be causing them. In a paper, published in Physical Review Letters, an international team of researchers explained that these findings cannot be explained by the current understanding of particle physics. This might mean there are entirely new forms of particles and interactions at play or that these unusual signals are the product of mysterious dark matter. Dr Stephanie Wissel, an astrophysicist from The Pennsylvania State University who worked on the ANITA team, says: 'The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice. 'It's an interesting problem because we still don't actually have an explanation for what those anomalies are.' The ANITA experiment was designed to hunt for an elusive type of particle called a neutrino, the smallest of all the subatomic particles. Neutrinos are typically created by high-energy events like the Big Bang or a supernova and are extremely common throughout the universe. However, since they are so small and don't have a charge, they don't affect the objects they pass through, which makes them extremely difficult to spot. Dr Wissel says: 'You have a billion neutrinos passing through your thumbnail at any moment, but neutrinos don't really interact. 'So, this is the double-edged sword problem. If we detect them, it means they have travelled all this way without interacting with anything else. We could be detecting a neutrino coming from the edge of the observable universe.' Like opening a time capsule from the distant past, examining the signal from a neutrino could reveal more information about the cosmos than data from the world's most powerful telescopes. To try and find them, the ANITA experiment uses balloons floating 18 to 24 miles (30-39km) above the Antarctic, where other signals are rare, to look for radio waves caused by neutrinos hitting the ice. 'We point our antennas down at the ice and look for neutrinos that interact in the ice, producing radio emissions that we can then sense on our detectors,' says Dr Wissel. Just as a ball thrown to the ground will always bounce at a particular angle, scientists can use the trajectory of these signals to track the neutrino back to its origin. However, the scientists were shocked to discover a set of signals which could not be traced back to any possible origin. These radio signals were coming from the the ice at an impossibly steep angle, something that a neutrino-produced signal could never do. Even stranger, rather than bouncing off the ice, the pulses appear to be coming from below the horizon. That would mean the radio waves would have had to travel through thousands of miles of rock and ice before reaching ANITA's balloons, which should have rendered them undetectable. After analysing the data from multiple flights and comparing it to simulations of cosmic rays, the researchers were able to filter out the background noise. However, after eliminating the possibility of any other known particle-based signals, the anomalous radio pulses remained stubbornly unexplained. Additionally, other detectors, the IceCube Experiment and the Pierre Auger Observatory didn't detect anything that could explain what the scientists were seeing. According to scientists' current understanding of how particles interact, these signals shouldn't be possible. This has led scientists to speculate that they may have stumbled onto a type of particle interaction previously unknown to science. Dr Wissel says: 'My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effect occurs near ice and also near the horizon that I don't fully understand, but we certainly explored several of those, and we haven't been able to find any of those yet either. 'So, right now, it's one of these long-standing mysteries.' To learn more, scientists are currently building an even bigger detector, dubbed PUEO, which will be better at spotting hidden particles. That could help scientists understand the origins of these baffling signals from beneath the ice. Dr Wissel concludes: 'I'm excited that when we fly PUEO, we'll have better sensitivity. In principle, we should pick up more anomalies, and maybe we'll actually understand what they are.' The theories and discoveries of thousands of physicists since the 1930s have resulted in a remarkable insight into the fundamental structure of matter. Everything in the universe is found to be made from a few basic building blocks called fundamental particles, governed by four fundamental forces. Our best understanding of how these particles and three of the forces are related to each other is encapsulated in the Standard Model of particle physics. All matter around us is made of elementary particles, the building blocks of matter. These particles occur in two basic types called quarks and leptons. Each consists of six particles, which are related in pairs, or 'generations'. All stable matter in the universe is made from particles that belong to the first generation. Any heavier particles quickly decay to the next most stable level. There are also four fundamental forces at work in the universe: the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force. They work over different ranges and have different strengths. Gravity is the weakest but it has an infinite range. The electromagnetic force also has infinite range but it is many times stronger than gravity. The weak and strong forces are effective only over a very short range and dominate only at the level of subatomic particles. The Standard Model includes the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces and all their carrier particles, and explains well how these forces act on all of the matter particles. However, the most familiar force in our everyday lives, gravity, is not part of the Standard Model, and fitting gravity comfortably into this framework has proved to be a difficult challenge.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Discover Bizarre Signals Coming From Ice in Antarctica
Some strange radio signals are broadcasting out of Antarctic ice, and the researchers who found them don't know why. Using a cosmic particle detector, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania detected peculiar signals that, according to a press release, "defy the current understanding of particle physics." The particle detector that found those strange signals — which is, charmingly, suspended from a bunch of balloons — belongs to a range of instruments known as the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA). That balloon-based conglomerate generally detects particles reflected onto the ground from space, which made it all the stranger when the Penn researchers found that the signals they were reading seemed to be coming from below the horizon. According to Stephanie Wissel, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Penn who also worked on the ANITA team that detected those strange Antarctic pulses, the researchers had been looking for tiny, electric charge-lacking neutrino particles when they stumbled upon the bizarre waves. "The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles," Wissel said in the press release, "like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice." Though the particulars of the particle findings were detailed in a new paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers were more candid in the press release about just how stumped they were. "We still don't actually have an explanation for what those anomalies are," Wissel said, "but what we do know is that they're most likely not representing neutrinos." The issue with neutrinos, which are bountiful in the universe but generally emitted by super high-energy sources like supernovae or particle accelerators, is that we don't have very many instruments sensitive enough to detect them — which was why the ANITA team was on the hunt for them in the first place. "You have a billion neutrinos passing through your thumbnail at any moment, but neutrinos don't really interact," the Penn professor explained. "So, this is the double-edged sword problem. If we detect them, it means they have traveled all this way without interacting with anything else. We could be detecting a neutrino coming from the edge of the observable universe." After comparing the ANITA readings to other neutrino detectors, the team felt confident that what they were seeing was something different, which was equal parts fascinating and head-scratching. "My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effect occurs near ice and also near the horizon that I don't fully understand, but we certainly explored several of those, and we haven't been able to find any of those yet either," Wissel theorized. "So, right now, it's one of these long-standing mysteries." With ANITA approaching its 20th birthday, NASA, Penn State, and other institutions have been working on designing a more sensitive balloon-borne instrument to detect particles like neutrinos. Known as Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO), the new detector is both larger and better at detective work for smaller particles. "I'm excited that when we fly PUEO, we'll have better sensitivity," Wissel said. "In principle, we should pick up more anomalies, and maybe we'll actually understand what they are. We also might detect neutrinos, which would in some ways be a lot more exciting." More on Antarctica: Antarctic Glacier Accused of "Ice Piracy"
Fox News
2 days ago
- Science
- Fox News
Scientists detect mysterious radio waves coming from beneath Antarctica's ice
A group of researchers in Antarctica have found strange radio waves coming from below the ice. According to the results published in the Physical Review Letters, the mysterious radio waves were discovered by the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA). During this experiment, the researchers analyzed signals traveling to Earth using a variety of instruments. Using balloons to send the instruments up high into the atmosphere, the goal was to gain new understandings of cosmic events throughout the universe. According to the release, the reason Antarctica was the site of these experiments was due to little to no interference from other radio waves. However, the researchers found radio waves transmitting from under the ice instead. Stephanie Wissel, associate professor of physics, astronomy and astrophysics from Penn State, and one of the researchers discussed in a release by the college, revealed they discovered the radio waves while searching for a particle known as neutrinos. "The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice," Wissel said in the release. Wissel went on to explain that the radio waves should have been undetectable. The waves would have had to go through thousands of kilometers of rock and would have been absorbed into the rocks. She also said in the release that the team of researchers had no answer about how these neutrinos were detected. According to Wissel, neutrinos are important to the understanding of the universe due to emitted by high-energy sources and are typically hard to detect. Wissel said that you could have a billion neutrinos passing through you at any moment but they don't interact with you. "So, this is the double-edged sword problem. If we detect them, it means they have traveled all this way without interacting with anything else. We could be detecting a neutrino coming from the edge of the observable universe," Wissel said. Once discovered, these particles can reveal data and information about cosmic events that even the most powerful telescopes can not. According to Wissel, the balloon is sent up 40 kilometers or 29 miles above the ice to catch emissions signals. However, the researchers cross-referenced their findings with two other experiments and found that their results did not match up. This means that what they found were not neutrinos but something else entirely. Wissel said that there have been some theories that this could be dark matter, but it can't be confirmed and remains a mystery. "My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effects occur near ice and also near the horizon that I don't fully understand, but we certainly explored several of those, and we haven't been able to find any of those yet either," Wissel said.
