Eideard

Small portion of neutrino detector at Gran Sasso Laboratory
Photo by Volker Steger

Scientists in Europe have announced they had likely solved the case of the missing neutrinos, one of the enduring mysteries in the subatomic universe of particle physics.

If confirmed in subsequent experiments, the findings challenge core precepts of the so-called Standard Model of physics, and could have major implications for our understanding of matter in the universe, the researchers said.

For decades physicists had observed that fewer neutrinos — electrically neutral particles that travel close to the speed of light — arrived at Earth from the Sun than solar models predicted.

That meant one of two things: either the models were wrong, or something was happening to the neutrinos along the way.

At least one variety called a muon-neutrino was actually seen to disappear, lending credence to a Nobel-winning 1969 hypothesis that the miniscule particles were shape-shifting into a new and unseen form.

Now scientists at Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics have for the first time observed — with 98 percent certainty — what they change into during a process called neutrino oscillation: another type of particle known as tau…

Under the prevailing Standard Model, neutrinos cannot have mass. But the new experiments prove that they do…

“Whatever exists in the infinitely small always has repercussions in the infinitely big,” Ereditato said.

The persistence of scientific curiosity, the willingness – and funding – to maintain complete cycles of experimentation brought their research to this breakthrough. It took nearly four years from the time the beam was switched on to witness the muon-to-tau metamorphosis.

Bravo!