Friday, August 26, 2011

Neutrinos and Antineutrinos - Maybe Not So Different After All

The latest report out of the MINOS experiment seems to pull back a bit from their earlier report of the difference between neutrinos and antineutrinos mass oscillation.

“This more precise measurement shows us that these particles and their antimatter partners are very likely not as different as indicated earlier. Within our current range of vision it now seems more likely that the universe is behaving the way most people think it does," said Rob Plunkett, Fermilab scientist and co-spokesman of MINOS. “This new, additional information on antineutrino parameters helps put limits on new physics, which will continue to be searched for by future planned experiments.”
 Hum... so are they "correcting" their earlier paper?

Zz.

1 comment:

Kea said...

I have already written to Jenny Thomas about this. These MINOS people have just totally screwed up their chance for a Nobel prize.

The 1104 result, which looks directly at an antineutrino beam, is correct. This new result comes from a different experiment, namely looking for antineutrinos in the neutrino beam. But under the mirror neutrino hypothesis these are not the same thing! The so called antineutrino beam is in fact a mirror neutrino beam, and the delta should be around 0.0036, precisely as measured. They obtain a new result close to the neutrino result precisely because they are now merely looking at antineutrinos (well, probably some mixture). No need for CPT violation anywhere, but non standard results. Predicted in advance by theory.

As a CMP, you should appreciate the mirror idea, like in the topological insulator papers.