Recorded: 2020/04/24
Released: 2020/07/07
Jim and Randy explore dark matter proposals based on sterile neutrios. Even more difficult to detect than the three active neutrinos of the standard model
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Notes:
1. The papers we read for this program:
- Kopp, J., M. Maltoni, T. Schwetz, "Are there sterile neutrinos at the eV scale?." Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 091801 (2011). [arXiv]
- Naumov, D.V., "Sterile Neutrino: A Short Introduction." EPJ Web Conf. 207, 04004 (2018).[arXiv]
- Kang, S.K, "Roles of sterile neutrinos in particle physics and cosmology." Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 34, 1930005 (2019) [arXiv]
2. Related Episodes of Physics Frontiers:
3. Please visit and comment on our
subreddit, and if you can help us keep this going by contributing to our
Patreon, we'd be grateful.
Transcript (Rough Draft)
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07:26:11 Oh, and welcome to physics frontiers Episode Number 52 sterile neutrinos Show Notes for this episode can be found at frontiers dot physics@n.com slash 52 shows include the papers that we discussed in this program as well as links to related physics frontiers
07:26:30 episodes. And now Jim and Randy.
07:26:33 Okay. How's it going, Randy what's going on. Jim, it's good to hear from you too. Today we're going to talk about sterile neutrinos sterile neutrinos what is a sterile nutrient already.
07:26:43 Alright so, we all know that the neutrinos are incredibly weird because back in 98 they discovered that the neutrinos coming from the sun were oscillating, so they're changing from one form of neutrino to another form of neutrino to another form of neutrino
07:26:58 on their way to the earth, which is just bewildering.
07:27:02 So now, of particle physicists and cosmologists are looking at the idea that there may be another type of neutrino, that's different than this, the three that we know about the electron neutrino the tower, the new on neutrino in the town neutrino, then
07:27:17 there may be a kind of a neutrino which only interacts with other neutrinos through the week force, and with gravity, but not with anything else, or rather through mixing it's through mixing right yeah it's see it's through mixing it's not through the
07:27:35 week horse. So the whole point of the several neutrino is that it does not interact with the weak force. And that's why you can't see it, but it does have an impact on like the ratios that they're seeing in.
07:27:45 What is it short baseline neutrino detection experiments. Well yeah for the first paper I think he was talking about that a lot and they showed up in the other two but the whole idea was for these reactor experiments and these disappearance and appears
07:28:01 experiments, you have a short baseline that's a short distance between oscillations you remember what the distance was down.
07:28:08 I know that it was pretty short like on the meter scale, I think. Yeah, so it was on the meter scale not on the 20,000 kilometer scale like the regular oscillations.
07:28:18 And so they were looking at those things and they said we have to have these really massive neutrinos.
07:28:33 You don't have to have but one way to explain that is, is that you have these massive neutrinos that are sort of in the neutrino mix. yeah so they what they they honestly into that form on rare occasion, that's the idea so that's why they.
07:28:39 That's how they're explaining away like the five or 6% discrepancies are seeing in those experiments. Yeah, it has to be very rare, or that is because the oscillation frequencies related to the difference of the square of the mass, you know these normal
07:28:54 neutrinos are less than 170 million electron volts. If you add up the normal neutrinos their mass is less than 170. million electron volts.
07:29:06 And this other guy has to be somewhere around one electron but at least for the kinds of the talking about in the first two papers.
07:29:15 In the third paper they get really really massive, but I mean as a comparison and electron has a mass of about one half of the mega crumbles about 500 to electron volts.
07:29:28 So these guys are like 3 million times 30 million times something like that. That's massive.
07:29:35 And then, with all of the different constraints, the heaviness of the normal neutrinos and the active neutrinos he called active because it interacts with the weak force.
07:29:44 The heaviest of those could be 70 million electron rules.
07:29:48 That's the maximum NASA could have because that 170 million lead from volts is a maximum size or a maximum limit for the sum of the three it could get down to as low as about 59.5 million electron volts.
07:30:04 Wasn't that first paper the first article that they talk about a sterile neutrino with a massive like 1.7.
07:30:11 electron volts. It was like a range between like point six 1.7 electron volts, I think, Well yeah, they've got two different experiments. The appearance and disappearance experiments and those should have about 0.6 electron volts squared, and the reactor
07:30:25 experiments should have a mass difference between the smallest neutrino the lightest neutrino and the neutrino of 1.7 electron volts squared.
07:30:37 And me take the square roots for both of those things it gets closer to one electron bolt for the mass and that latest between know probably doesn't matter very much at all because the latest nutrients at maximum could be 50 million electron volts or
07:30:51 one 20th of an electron balls in this.
07:30:55 Okay. All I did was I took all the information that they gave me and I found the limits for each one of the neutrinos in the latest one has a range from zero to 50.
07:31:06 million electron volts, or actually a little bit lower around 49.5 million miles, and then you know the other ones have the other ranges as well. And those are all inferred right that based on the probability of them shifting from one form or the other,
07:31:20 right. Yeah, and I think they do that by looking at the Z, with the width of the energy line for the Z Bowser.
07:31:30 Yeah, because neutrinos interact with a Z bows on the W bows on, and they'll definitely also interact with leptons like the electron right neutrinos yeah yeah the regular old neutrinos show up in electron decays, and that's how the weak force was first
07:31:48 postulated, and the neutrino was first postulated was because there was a little bit of a problem with the energies, with the old reactor experiments with the old model chamber experiments.
07:31:59 They postulated that something was going on with neutral particle. Yeah, I'm going to skip the history Cohen Shut up.
07:32:06 Well, let me ask you this because this is this is a question that was didn't see answered in those papers because I, I should have done some deeper digging but is there a difference between the electron neutrino that the Mulan neutrino and the town neutrino,
07:32:21 other than their rest mass.
07:32:23 Like, do they have a difference in their properties or anything. Yeah, I mean they don't have charges. Yeah, and anything else so they're just neutrinos that show off with interactions involving like the new on in the towel on as well.
07:32:38 It's just a towel particle I don't know if the only difference between them is the rest mass.
07:32:43 Then, isn't it more like there's like one type of neutrino there that's changing its maths. Well that's what the oscillation say, yeah, that's what I'm saying is that though the oscillations suggest that the nutrient all three flavors and neutrinos are
07:32:57 just a neutrino in three different states, well I mean that might be one way to look at I don't think that's the way they think about it. My feeling is the oscillation is just weird because what happens with the isolation is, you have the three real nutrients,
07:33:10 which are new one new two to three.
07:33:21 And then you have the three neutrinos we actually see which are the electron neutrino them you know and the tower neutrino, the real ones are the ones that satisfy all the fun symmetries of, you know, the standard model and stuff like that and the ones
07:33:28 that we see are some linear combination of those things so it's a superposition of those three different things and that's sort of what all that mixing angle is about.
07:33:38 And that's where all that talk about coherence and incoherence came in right yeah in that paper. He was saying let's give the name of the paper and the author to because we usually do that so people can follow you know completely forgot to tell everybody
07:34:01 we read something, a bunch of stuff like a few articles in the popular press plus some papers that were published basically what's happening is, if the mass difference is much smaller than your uncertainty in the square of the mass, then plane ways are
07:34:10 okay you basically end up with a very long wavelength. And if you have that very long wavelength, you can just assume that it's a plane way, but it's the uncertainties on the same order of your mass difference, and it's about that one to do electron volts,
07:34:25 volts, squared areas where the uncertainties, no longer have this thing that looks like a plane way then you have to wait packets because couldn't because your neutrinos more localized, and then if you have something that's really really massive, and
07:34:40 that'll show up in the cosmology stuff and means your material is going to be very localized and you aren't going to see any oscillations. Another question that came up was looking at this was it seemed like they were suggesting that the oscillations
07:34:53 aren't just like a random statistical thing as much as it seemed like they're saying that, that the neutrinos were interacting with either Wz bows ons or some other particle between the Sun and the Earth and ordered oscillate or those oscillations being
07:35:07 driven by an interaction, or is that purely a probabilistic function, my understanding from this is that it's probably list because they call it qualify probabilistic in it which made it seem like it was just the probabilities are just falling out of
07:35:20 like Ambien interactions maybe that's what I was thinking. Anyway, is not really any space that nutrient is can travel through where they're not going to have some level of interactions right.
07:35:30 Otherwise, like how could it neutrino go from like a smaller mass to a larger mass, if they didn't somehow get that energy from some kind of interaction right the uncertainty principle may be sufficient for that, but that means that we might be talking
07:35:43 about the interaction with the vacuum expectation value of the energy and the ambient space maybe like quantum field fluctuations. Because Isn't that how the uncertainty principle works and other models where they basically borrows energy from the vacuum
07:35:57 and then gives it back.
07:35:59 Alright, so I thought it was I thought was more particle based like it was like they were encountering, you know bosons or something in space.
07:36:06 I don't think that can be true. Well, maybe it's true maybe that's why they isolate but I mean they're saying that, even though these guys don't interact with the wh zero zones.
07:36:20 Please still.
07:36:22 Okay, I was just talking about normal ones, you can still stay with the other ones so they can so absolutely right.
07:36:29 with the wnz bosoms, then it can be caused by good week field, but they all have mass right so they all have to be interacting with the Higgs field right and that has a specific vacuum expectation value right so maybe that mass oscillation has something
07:36:59 to do with this interaction with the Higgs field.
07:37:02 Honestly, they spend a lot of time talking about the Higgs field in here but I wasn't always sure exactly what was going on. Yeah, it's a tricky subject the neutrinos are so unbelievably weird, and then to throw on top of this possibility of sterile neutrinos.
07:37:16 It's like, Holy smokes, because this is a whole other whole other ballgame. I mean, at least with most of quantum physics, you have discrete particles that remain discrete particles.
07:37:28 I guess corks do some kind of oscillations to generally just look at it as an idea like we don't look at the world right.
07:37:35 Yeah, the world was wave freaky or than we normally think, but at least normally like electrons, stay the same you know you think, you know, certain particles decay like a new ones that come into the atmosphere.
07:37:48 I mean, they all have a, an identity and when they decay that became very specific ways.
07:37:54 You know only only it was the, I guess the neutrinos and corks The only ones I can think of off the top my hand to do this weird oscillation thing where they changed from like one basically flavor to another right.
07:38:04 We should talk more about the sterile neutrinos so the accelerator experiments are the reactor experiments, I should say are indicating that there could be the presence of these several neutrinos with a rest massive somewhere around one electron volts.
07:38:23 In that, you know, mass square term, but cosmological either looking at sterile neutrinos with a much larger mass, like 3.5 kilo electron volts right well they're seeing a line at 3.5 cooler from volts per saying that the neutrino has to have 7.1.
07:38:38 electron volts, as its mass to see that line during the decay. Oh, okay. So, so the neutrino decays. So what happens is the circle neutrino isolates back into an active neutrino.
07:38:52 And that actually neutrino is excited so it. It's Wz particle I don't remember which one, and that z particle then splits off into two more neutrinos.
07:39:07 That's the signature that they're looking at in that 3.5 kilo electron volts line.
07:39:09 Now, I guess that's the explanation for the line so the line came person the explanation came later. But that's how they're interpreting that one. So they're seeing the photons with that much energy is that right the 3.5 kilo electron volts photons.
07:39:22 I don't think of the measurement of the neutrinos so eventually was have turned into photons.
07:39:26 Okay, so that's what they're thinking might be a dark matter candidate right that's what they think is a dark matter candidate, although it's really really heavy.
07:39:33 Yeah that is way heavier than the reactor experiments are indicating.
07:39:39 But on the other hand, cosmological Lee, like you know you see cosmic rays with tons of energy to right, it's way higher than anything we produce in a reactor, so I wonder I wonder if there's some mechanism cosmological that could explain the presence
07:39:52 of those high energy neutrinos, like maybe, I don't know black holes or something couldn't create a really high energy neutrino, I don't know.
07:40:11 I thought that was only like a hot, hot Dark Matter candidate. If they had the really low like one electron volts, rest mass but that it could emulate the findings are seeing, which is, which is like a cold dark matter of thing, if they were much more
07:40:35 because then they'd have what less kinetic energy right. I think that's why they call them warm. So at some point in one of these papers. I think it was the one we're talking about, which is no other role of sterile neutrinos in particle physics, yeah
07:40:41 the roles of certain fields in particle physics, which is a review article by Satan que con who's in Korea. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's the reason why they made the distinction between hot and warm, right, because nobody likes hot dark matter anymore.
07:40:59 Yeah, that's can work because it wouldn't clump right though, if it was hot, it wouldn't clump around the galaxies like we're seeing is that right. I think that's one of the reasons I mean there were a lot of reasons why.
07:41:09 It couldn't be about dark matter was explained galaxies, stability, and so I mean that would have been one of the first things that go into the theory so maybe after a while, people decided didn't work but probably there were a lot of other reasons that
07:41:23 went into that.
07:41:24 Well, I just think I mean if they were hot, and they you know they were real moving fast enough then they would have an enough kinetic energy they have escape velocity right so they want to gather in a nice cloud around galaxies right they just fly out
07:41:37 out all over the place in space like photons, possibly but I mean, at the time that people decided to, you know, neutrinos probably weren't the thing they were so, hoping that they were going to be with the Masada particles or something and he completely
07:41:50 Nast listen wander around and travel with the speed of light and all those other fun things you get to do when you have no mess. So I remember when Dark Matter first came out, the first.
07:42:02 No, you know. Well, I guess when it was being popularized in the press in the 90s. It seemed like our best explanation that point probably was something like a neutrino because it has to be something like virtually no interactions, other than gravity
07:42:13 And there has to be an awful lot of it. So this kind of brings that that idea back to life because even though your regular active neutrinos can't fit the bill, the sterile neutrinos might do it.
07:42:23 I don't think it ever really disappeared since the first idea about several neutrinos showed up I mean this persona neutrinos showed up in like 1968 or something like that.
07:42:32 Oh I thought that the like our first real indication that these babies existed was after that experiment that ran from like 1990 1995. We're at like Los Alamos National Lab.
07:42:43 Well I think that's the first time people thought they really need them. Oh, I see your theorized before that think there was a guy in Russia in 1968.
07:42:53 Yeah, I'm not going to try to pronounce his name.
07:42:54 First theorized them, and I think he was actually known for other things as well.
07:43:02 But there was no need for them, and it's one of these things where you're saying, basically, here's this thing that you'll never see as really important.
07:43:11 So, that's a great theory but you know we probably want to look for something that is a little more testable then later on they find out there's some deficiencies.
07:43:20 Once you find out there the deficiencies then you start worrying about things like that. Yeah, you're missing something right.
07:43:27 So there's also this weird, thumb. They call it tension, which is a nice word for it. tension between the appearance and disappearance arguments for the sterile neutrino.
07:43:40 So apparently they've got strong appearance, indications, but they have like counter disappearance evidence. So yeah, I mean the first paper actually seemed to be pretty good with both of them.
07:43:53 The first paper being sterile neutrino a short introduction, what I'm thinking about is the first paper is the one that basically started off people looking at several neutrinos is a really strong candidate, at least in this particular cycle, which was
07:44:07 are there several neutrinos at the electron volts scale. I cop. I'll Tony and Shrek. And that was in 2011, the other one that you're talking about this sterile neutrino a short introduction by now Marv from 2019.
07:44:24 And that's just going over the things that people sort of know extended some time in between there, or maybe just a personal judgment but sometime in the years, it seems like there was a falling out with the disappearance data because cop seemed to be
07:44:39 It seems like there was a falling out with the disappearance data because cop seemed to be pretty happy with using the disappear status to try to fit his three plus one, three plus two and one plus three plus form theories about the sterile nutrients.
07:44:52 And basically, he was using that disappearance stated help and try to get stuff, but there was an issue in the, in the 2019 paper. So those disappeared stated don't really seem to fit everything else, so we should talk about that.
07:45:04 Right. I mean there is another thing there that we didn't mention which is, if there's one sister all neutrino, why aren't there more several neutrinos.
07:45:13 And in fact, when this cop was looking at the data. This guy's from Fermilab. He didn't think that having just one certain neutrino get the right and he wanted to.
07:45:24 Yes, so he thought he needed to to actually fit the data that he had from the LSND and the mini boon experiments.
07:45:34 Although the later papers, seem to think that both of these experiments were not correct in some way.
07:45:42 And we shouldn't think about them booth very heart. Yeah, Dimitri nama does seem to be kind of bearish on the subject, based on that disappearance data.
07:45:52 Well, but he still looks at several things. Well, basically, you know, we have the two different ideas here like appearance data says that if you have a decay new on, it's going to pay into an electron, or positron plus a electron neutrino plus neutrino
07:46:11 an anti immune neutrino right now anytime you neutrino. Then there's an excess there's more electron neutrinos and you expect, and that's what it maybe my appearance and disappearance they're looking at the reactors.
07:46:23 And, you know, somebody updated the theory, and all of a sudden, there were fewer on the order of six to 12% fewer neutrinos than you expected in reactors and in calibration sources and stuff like that.
07:46:38 So those are the anomalies that tell you that you probably need this has the logical data doesn't really tell you you probably need this, but instead you're trying to use this to explain the cosmological data right but there it has more logical data seems
07:46:52 to be not neutral but fairly aggressively against anything that anybody thinks up to explain it, at least as far as I can tell, because in this paper Lee I think you're right i mean this paper on sterile neutrino short introduction my novel paper.
07:47:07 He's seems to be pointing at Big Bang nuclear synthesis and the inflationary rate of the universe.
07:47:14 How that how the existence of sterile neutrinos would alter those models significantly. Right.
07:47:26 I think he said that the universe would expand faster during the inflationary epoch, and it would alter the nucleus at this is so that when we might get different readings on like a hydrogen isotopes and so forth or helium isotopes, can't remember which,
07:47:36 I can't remember what, but then in, and so that sounded really compelling like okay yeah if it's just going to change the, the entire Big Bang cosmology and give us wrong estimates of the prevalence of isotopes in the early universe then, this can't be
07:47:48 right. But then, reading in the role of sterile neutrinos in particle physics paper.
07:47:55 It seems like he was saying that because the sterile neutrino isn't going to interact via that weak force, and because of its, what was it its mass maybe he said that who actually want to be detectable they want to create a detectable influence on the
07:48:10 abundances of early isotopes. So they seem to be having two different viewpoints they're like that papers seem to indicate that the sterile the trainers are still allowable within the cosmological data, right.
07:48:24 So it's a very controversial area, no doubt. When I look at these papers, there were a lot of them that came out, you know, last week, even when this gets put up online, they'll still be a lot of makeup put out last week, so people doing a lot of work
07:48:38 in the area and trying to explain things with the several neutrinos, and maybe if I things that were not so ancient like these two and 2019 papers.
07:48:51 2019 is ancient now, you never know
07:48:56 everything could have changed. Right. But it's hard to tell because, you know, if you look at the press, everything is brand new and never been done before and all that other stuff so it's hard to actually use them as a guide to what's going on.
07:49:07 Instead, you have to sit around and read a bunch of 50 page papers, see if there's actually anything new one. Yeah, somebody thought there was something know at least enough new to publish.
07:49:18 Like I was saying, you know, we've got these different experiments with these different things. I think it is estimates of the parameter matrix element.
07:49:29 So, these things mix, right, you can talk about as an angle but really it's mathematically represented as a matrix that looks like rotation matrix is a unitary matrix it acts like a rotation matrix.
07:49:41 So, you have you, remembering something. According to a street grid, and then you wanted to switch it over to north, south, east, west sort of thing you'd have a matrix similar to that, you could use this to rotate the components.
07:49:56 And that's how they get the masses, right, because that works.
07:50:00 You have a mass, if they weren't rotated rotation. These are real rotation what it is is it basically gives you the superposition state of the neutrinos.
07:50:09 And so that's going to tell you well if you have an electron.
07:50:14 Then you have so much new ones so much new to so much new three.
07:50:20 Right. And if you have a new one, you have a different number for each one of those. So each one of the three neutrinos that we see is a different superposition a different linear combination of different combination of the three standard model neutrinos,
07:50:37 does anybody offer any explanation on. I'm confused because how can this sterile neutrino oscillate with with active neutrinos like how do you lose the weak force interaction.
07:50:49 And another way that's true but I think that's just part of the quantum mechanics, you know the oscillations are sort of part of the quantum mechanics, I think that part of the interactions, so you're just saying that, instead of having three different
07:51:02 standard model neutrinos you have the three center mountain credos, plus a sterile neutrino, or two, or seven or however many decide you need to make this work.
07:51:12 You just had an oscillation of more things.
07:51:14 So when you're trying to detect the neutrinos This is why the disappearance data is so compelling is you'd expect to be able to detect a certain probability from any reactor or the sun or whatever, but you're seeing a gap, like you're not getting the
07:51:41 that you expected. So it looks like you're missing something right to the tune of a few percent, you have postulate these sterile neutrinos it's really fascinating for the different experiments that mixing has to be smaller and smaller from different things, right.
07:51:43 right. So, for the reactor deficit disorder of the absolute value of the matrix element for the mixing between an electron and the poor country no has to be 0.1 for our friend now mouth, said the for cosmological stuff.
07:51:58 it sounds to me for all the cosmological stuff that e4 element has to be very very small, which means that it just doesn't happen, right. So, to explain this stuff in the early universe, basically, you know the Big Bang nuclear synthesis stuff, three
07:52:14 combination epic yeah and the cosmic microwave background and all that other stuff. If you try to explain those things, then that mixing element has to be very very small, basically, to the point where it almost never happens that the neutrinos will turn
07:52:29 into the several neutrino for a while. So that's a little bit weird for two different regimes actually put multiple regimes, either the largest in the smallest of the different regimes for them.
07:52:41 Yeah, he was saying that the cosmological arguments disfavor additional external neutrinos with math is larger than like point three electrons.
07:52:50 That's right. So those would be the order of these other neutrinos, and that also means that they be oscillating a lot with them, so you know it's starting to get to a point where it doesn't look like it's a completely coherent idea, but like I said there
07:53:04 are a lot of people working on it maybe there's a way to put it all together. Yeah, this is such a challenging area because they were running those experiments at Los Alamos National Lab for like five years and they got like 90 detections of neutrinos
07:53:18 over that period. We're used to thinking about you know the billions of inner of collisions they have per second or whatever the Large Hadron Collider.
07:53:26 So yeah, we're working with limited data, and it's such a nascent field of exploration, that there's all kinds of experiments and errors in there that we might not be able to see right, possibly I think you do a pretty good job of things.
07:53:39 Yeah. Is it got all these cross sections and everything worked out but still, the data is so limited right like it's so hard to get detections if you could get a few billion detections and you'll be a lot easier to analyze this statistically and get higher
07:53:51 confidence, but I did notice that they're talking about like three sigma confidence level that there's another neutrino right and this makes at least, but then they said that the combine the data from one experiment and a completely different experiment.
07:54:05 And I don't know if that's legitimate Can you do that can you combine data, then they said that it was like a six sigma confidence level for the existence of another type of neutrino.
07:54:15 And then, that kind of sets you back on your heels you're like shit four five is the standard right yeah I think that was the whole point of what top was doing right.
07:54:22 Yeah, That's right. On the other hand, he knows it's warm so great. And then when you look at sort of the ranges were these things could actually be.
07:54:32 They're pretty small. Right. I mean, they're pretty small and they're not really finding things there so it's a little bit worrying, to think about it that way.
07:54:41 And again, the data are not all consistent where would be so you look at this kind of experimented so it's okay with that it doesn't work at all, so they have very specific ranges, but as far as I know they hadn't really found anything there, and sometimes
07:54:56 some of these lines where they say the things have been cross off still kind of close to it so I mean possibly there's something there but, but it is and look really compelling, although I mean obviously they think it is maybe just want to be the first
07:55:19 one to predict it, just in case.
07:55:13 I don't know I mean that those discrepancies I mean, like you said, I mean, when you've got discrepancies on the order of like, you know, five to 12 or 13% or whatever.
07:55:22 That's pretty significant. I mean, even though we are working with limited numbers of detections they've been doing it for a long time. Right. And they do have a good handle on how often those interactions happen with the particles and their chamber and
07:55:34 they can detect that and they know what these are top quantum physicists figuring out these experiments, that's still a very significant finding think there's something going on there that they can explain.
07:55:44 I mean, the big significance about this is not so much the explanation not in the explanations interesting, but I don't really understand why there wouldn't be something else plus the line with the that pretty much says, There's no more neutrino except
07:55:59 PDSA well then it doesn't interact with anything. So neutrino that doesn't interact with the WMZ particles, but the discrepancies. Look, important enough to be one of these things we think it's one of the one of these places where the standard model is
07:56:13 going to break down right I guess that's why the pressing into it because that's our first exciting light for new standard model of physics right beyond standard model of physics.
07:56:22 Yeah, there aren't very many places where it looks like there are problems with the standard model. I didn't talk about it 17 a couple episodes ago there's this and there's like, there's one other thing that I have to say though I did lose a lot of my
07:56:33 excitement about the X 17 findings when I did some further reading and found out that apparently that same lab has been predicting this kind of particle on multiple occasions before over a period of like 10 or 20 years, and they were you know they're
07:56:45 wrong. On the other hand, the several neutrinos acts 17. You know what they're seeing is saying that there's something wrong with the standard model, the ideas that they have might not be the right ideas, but what they're seeing is probably significant.
07:57:03 Yeah, and that's that's more than we've gotten from the freakin multibillion dollar Large Hadron Collider which only really confirmed the Higgs boson and everything else.
07:57:12 Yeah, a lot of places we just see confirmations and that's nice, it's useful, but it's just confirming what seems to have been true already. Yeah, pretty well trodden since what the 70s or 60s.
07:57:25 You know the standard models complex enough, but I mean the places where it breaks down is where there's going to be new fundamental physics for the people who do that, because otherwise we're going to get really bored, does that to make a modification
07:57:38 of the Standard Model when they found neutrino oscillations. I don't know how much they had to change it. I think what happened is they sort of changed what they meant by an electron neutrino right to be this mix of the center of all neutrinos.
07:57:53 Okay, so it's pretty minor modification that in order to accommodate that. Because I don't remember they were surprised by it so it wasn't predicted by the standard bottle.
07:58:02 No, no, maybe not, but they were able to cobble it in, I guess, seems to be good enough. That's it kind of exciting thing because if they had to modify the Standard Model A little bit once for neutrinos maybe they have to do it again.
07:58:12 I mean if there's actually anything to this.
07:58:15 Yeah, well, was there anything else in these papers you wanted to touch on Jim, I think that's everything I'm mean for the last one, the rules paper I only read at once and so that pretty quick so see no I don't see anything except for notes telling me
07:58:31 to look up other things, see what the hell we were talking about, I have to say that I was really impressed when I was reading about how this all came about right how this Sterling Trina idea started or emerged in the like the disappearance data and all
07:58:45 that, and family lab like built like a special detector neutrino detector in order to test those results with equipment tailor made for that exploration.
07:58:57 And that was the mini boom, and now they're working on the micro Boone right so it's cool that they're building like customized detectors to explore these questions.
07:59:06 I'm more excited about these kind of like tailor made experiments to answers, certain, you know, empirically driven questions that come up that I am about this like building a bigger Collider, you know some places that can't build a bigger collider right
07:59:19 like in the middle of Chicago. Sure, and they're not cheap either you can't go building a, you know, increasing order of magnitude collision energies, you know, every year.
07:59:31 It's a really expensive way to go, but these are cool because they're, they're less expensive, and they're and they're looking to answer a specific question which came up, you know.
07:59:39 Okay. So, apparently, I do have a note here that says that me right handed neutrinos right so interact with the left handed neutrinos, and the Higgs particle via the collar interactions so it seems something about the form of the interactions, basically
07:59:54 saying that somehow there, they are pulling the energy out of the vacuum exploitation value of the Higgs field. Okay so, so the active and the sterile neutrinos, which are the left handed and right handed neutrinos.
08:00:07 They do interact, but it's mediated by this Higgs field. Well, I'm not sure, the way I, the way I wrote it down, it sounds like the both interact with a blue collar type interaction, but it doesn't say exactly what all pressroom.
08:00:23 Okay, That's the way I read down in my notes. The Ocala potential that that's that plays a big, big role in the strong force Right, yeah. So when you get to get your name on one of these equations, Jim.
08:00:41 I think it's a little late if I was going to do that I would have done it that way you Cal was he was some you know upstart like MIT grad or something.
08:00:45 On 25 I'm going to revolutionize physics with this equation, I don't know, let's see, he was born in 1907, so probably not right he was like our age. Now he's probably is like 40 or something right oh geez, he was in the 30s.
08:01:01 So yeah, he was in his 20s.
08:01:05 So yes, you have to remember that next life.
08:01:11 So you got to give up all the good stuff when you're like a teenager and in the young adult in order to make your breakthrough and then you can like as party.
08:01:19 I should have put that put that backwards in my life.
08:01:23 Yeah, I don't think it works that way I think if you miss out on your 20s you never get them back.
08:01:30 Unless you move to New Orleans.
08:01:36 Yeah, I guess I've seen a couple guys in New Orleans try that. Burning Man to you'll see some of that.
08:01:40 That's another reason to stay with it. Yep, got it all hanging out baby.
08:01:46 All right, Jim, thank you so much for going over all this with me. So it's a really intriguing thing I mean there's definitely something something he's explaining here we just stare on the train was might be the way to go, or maybe there's something even
08:01:56 weirder going on with neutrinos that we don't know yet. There must be something weird going on with neutrinos, well there's something weird happening right because they can't explain away those discrepancies right.
08:02:06 Doesn't matter how big a hole you dig under South Dakota, you still can't find enough of them to figure out what the hell is going on, or Antarctica, like you've seen the ice cube right.
08:02:15 I've never been there No, I mean, I've seen photos right they made this gigantic neutrino detector under the ice, you know, it's crazy. That's a good place for not going to get very many visitors.
08:02:27 I'd love to see it but there's just no freakin way I want to go into the freaking it's archaic yeah that's another thing you miss.
08:02:33 I did have a friend who decided to go down, down there oh yeah but
08:02:40 yeah I don't, I don't remember I just remember he decided I'm gonna take six months out of my life and live in an article, Jesus, I don't know why I decided that, but then I never saw it again so
08:02:52 you know if you made it back.
08:02:54 Well, I don't even know if he made it there. Okay. Was there an intro definitely is the ARPANET back then or something. Oh, man, that was a long time.
08:03:02 It was probably 94 so with the people I was hanging out with.
08:03:06 Oh, right. Well, that is a wrap. All right, Jim, we have a great week. Oh, you want to do this in a week. Yeah, absolutely. We know we got the pandemic vacation going on so let's make use of it remain sterile disinfect your groceries in the, you know,
08:03:21 we'll make it till next week and we'll do another one that's a horrible thing to say to them.
08:03:30 I'll talk to you later right duel friend gave
08:03:32 You have just listened to episode number 52 of physics frontiers sterile neutrinos Show Notes for this episode can be found at frontiers physics FM com slash 50 to show notes include the papers we read for this program as well as related episodes of physics
08:03:50 frontiers. thank you very much for listening, and good night.
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