As a mysterious particle could explain the universe missing antimatter

All we see around us, from the ground under our feet to the outermost galaxies, is made of matter. It has long been a problem for scientists: according to the best theories of the best current theories, matter and her colleague, antimatery, had to be created equally in a large explosion. However, the Antimater universe is rarely endangered. So what happened?

Physicists do not yet know the answer to this question, but many believe that the decision must be related to the subtle different views that behave in an important and antimetter. And at the moment, the most promising path to that undeveloped area focuses on new experiments on the mysterious subatomic particle called neutrin.

“It is not necessary that neutrins are undoubtedly an explanation of matter asymmetry of matter, but a very large model of models that can explain this asymmetry are related to neutrins,” says Jessica Turner, a theoretical physicist at Durham University in the United Kingdom.

For a moment, let’s make a backup: when physicists talk about matter, these are just the simple things that make the universe – mainly protons and neutrons (which make up atomic nuclei), as well as lighter particles such as electrons. Although the term “antimatery” has a scientific fantastic ring, the antimatter is not the one that is different from the usual substances. Usually, the only difference is electric charge: for example, positron – the first particle of antimontia to detect – corresponds to the electron in its mass but has a positive rather than a negative charge. (Things are a little more complicated with electric neutral particles. For example, a photon is considered its own antipartice, but the antineutron is different from the neutron of the fact that forms an antiquarks rather than ordinary quarks.)

In nature, various particles of antimonta can exist; They occur in space rays and thunder and are produced by a certain type of radioactive decay. (Because people – and bananas – have a small amount of radioactive potassium, they throw a minus in the form of antimontic positrons.)

Small quantities have also created particle accelerators and other experiments scientists, with great efforts and expenses-scientific fiction dreams of missiles driven by antimatery or planet destroying weapons, which are energy.

When matter and antimatery meet, they destroy, releases energy in the form of radiation. Such meetings are governed by the famous Einstein equation, e = mc2 – The energy is equal to the mass of the mass speed of light – it says you can convert slightly to a lot of energy, or vice versa. (Banana and bodies have so little mass that we do not notice the energy of teenagers that are distinguished by the destruction.) Because matter and antimater is so easily destroyed, it is difficult to make everything to make the antimater and stars from antimatery molecules and stars.

However, there is a puzzle: if in the Big Bang, matter and antimatery were created in the same quantities, as the theory shows, should they not be destroyed by leaving the universe consisting of pure energy? Why do you have to deal?

The best guess of physicists is that some of the early processes of the universe have supported the production of matter compared to the production of Antimater, but exactly what it was, is a mystery, and the question of why we live in an important universe is one of the most harmful problems in all physics.

Most importantly, physicists could not think of a process that is associated with today’s basic theory of matter and energy, called the standard particle physics model. It leaves theorists looking for new ideas, some of the unknown physics that go beyond the standard model. Neutrins come here.

Neutral answer

Neutrins are small particles without any electrical charge. (The name translates as “little neutral”.) According to the standard model, they should be mass -free, like photons, but experiments beginning in 1990 showed that they actually have a small mass. (They are at least a million times lighter than electrons, and extreme light things between normal materials.) Because physicists already know that neutrins damage the standard model with a mass, we hope that they can be insightful about what lies outside.

However, neutrins slowly gave their secrets as they barely interact with other particles. About 60 billion sun neutrins pass every second through each square centimeter of your skin. If those neutrins interact with our body atoms, they would probably destroy us. Instead, they pass straight through. “You probably won’t talk to one neutrin in your life,” says Pedro Machado, Fermilab, a physicist near Chicago. “It’s just unlikely.

However, experiments have shown that neutrins “fluctuate” when traveling, switching from three different identities – physicists call them “flavors”: electron neutrin, muo neutrino and you do not. Organ measurements also revealed that neutrins of different flavors have slightly different masses.

Neutrino vibrations are strange, but it can be strange useful as it can allow physicists to determine a certain basic symmetry in nature-and this in turn can illuminate the most alarming asymmetry, namely the imbalances of the universe matter.

For neutrino researchers, the main symmetry is called load and CP symmetry. This is actually a combination of two different symmetries: changing the charge of particles, antimater (or vice versa), while changing the particle parity, you insert a particle into a mirror image (for example, to turn your right hand into a glove of your left hand). Thus, the regular version of the CP-OPOSITE particles of the substance is a mirror image of the corresponding antiparticle. But does this opposite particle behave in the same way as original? If not, physicists say that CP symmetry is a fancy way to say that matter and antimatery behave a little differently. Thus, all examples of CP symmetry in nature could help explain the imbalances of matter.

In fact, in some mesons, CP lesion – a particular type of subatomic particles, usually made up of one quark and one antiquar. This is a surprising result first found in the 1960s. But this is an extremely small effect, and it lacks the opportunity to pay for the asymmetry of the universe matter.

2025 In July Scientists working in a large Hadron collector, CERN near Geneva, reported clear evidence that similarly violated single -type particles from different subatomic particles known as Baryon, but this newly observed CP violation is similarly believed to be too small to take into account the most important things.

Experiments with horizon

So what about neutrins? Do they damage CP symmetry-and if so, do they do it in a large enough way to explain why we live in an important universe? This is the question that is decided by the next generation of particle physics experiments. Among them, the most ambitious is the deep underground neutrin experiment (dune), which is now under construction in the US; Data collection could begin as early as 2029.

Dune will recruit the world’s most intense radius of neutrins, which will cause both neutrins and antineutrins from Fermilab to Sanford Underground research object at 800 miles away in South Dakota. (No tunnel; neutrins and antineutrins just pull the ground, usually hardly noticed that there are.) Detectors at each end of the beam will reveal how particles fluctuate when they go a distance between two laboratories – and whether neurin behavior is different from antineutrine.

Dune is not predicted by the exact violation of the neutrinos CP symmetry (if any), but it determines the upper limit. The greater the potential effect, the greater the behavior of antineutrine not to avoid the behavior and the more likely it is that the non -compliance may be responsible for the asymmetry of matter in the early universe.

The issue of Neutrin CP violation is an urgent question to show the way to a major rethinking of particle physics at Irvine, a physicist at the University of California. “If I could answer one question until the end of my life, I would like to know what it is,” she says.

CP symmetry lesion neutral, in addition to being an important discovery on its own, can challenge the standard model by directing the way to another new physics. For example, theorists say that this would mean that there may be two types of neutrinos-to-hand people (normally observed lightweight) and much heavier right-handed, which are still theoretical option. (The “hand” of particles means their quantum properties.)

These right hand neutrins can be as high as 1015 Times are heavier than protons, and they would be unstable, almost instantaneously decomposed after the emergence. Although they are not found in today’s universe, physicists suspect that the right hand neutrins may have existed in moments after a large explosion-disintegrate through a process that mimics CP violation and favorably evaluated the material compared to antimatery.

It is even possible that neutrins can act as their own anti -part elements – that is, neutrins can turn into antinutrines and vice versa. This scenario, which, when discovered by right -handed people, does not exist, unreasonable, neutrins are fundamentally different from more familiar particles such as quarks and electrons. If antineutrins can turn into neutrins, it could help explain where the antimatter went to the earliest moments of the universe.

One way to try this idea is to look for an unusual type of radioactive degradation-the-horrorized but never-overdone-wisdom as “neutrinoless double beta.” In the regular double beta -degradation, two nuclear neutrons at the same time break down into protons by releasing two electrons and two antineutrins during the process. But if neutrins can act as their antiparticles, then two neutrins can destroy each other, leaving only two electrons and an energy explosion.

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There are a number of experiments or planned to look for this decay process, including Kamland-Zen experiment, in Japan at Kamioka Neutrino detection facility; Nexo Experiment on Snolab’s device in Ontario, Canada; Another experiment in the Spanish Canfranc underground laboratory; and legends experiment at Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. Kamland-Zen, Next and Legend is already running and running.

While these experiments differ in details, they all use the same common strategy: they use a giant VAT on dense, radioactive material with detectors looking for unusually energetic electrons emissions. (Lack of Electronic Non -Uutrinian companions when energy they would have been Instead wearing electrons.)

Although neutrin remains one of the most mysterious particles of the famous particles, he slowly but steadily abandons his secrets. As it does, it can break the puzzle-all of the dominant universe of our matter, which allows us to allow curious creatures like us to flourish. The neurin, which is quietly captured through your body every second, gradually reveals the universe in a new light.

“I think we start a very exciting era,” says Turner.

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