> With a new data release expected soon, covering all five ARA stations over several years, the ARA team now anticipates up to seven candidate neutrino events.
I love the patience involved in this kind of science.
Is it just ice? I thought most neutrino detectors were large underground pools of water. I mean ... tomāto/tomăto, yes, but is solid water better than liquid water?
Summary for those who won't fight through four blocking pop-ups to read the article:
When a high-energy particle (cosmic ray, say) hits ice, it creates an interaction cascade. (Think of what the Fly's Eye experiment sees, but in ice.) That interaction cascade creates (among other things) a radio signal. This detector is a radio detector under Antarctic ice, looking for exactly that.
The point is that, if a high-energy neutrino were to hit the ice, it could create the same kind of cascade, but it would make it much further into the ice. By having multiple detectors, they can pin down the location, and so they can try to tell the difference between "regular" cosmic rays and high-energy neutrinos.
The detector seems to be functioning as designed. They have seven candidate neutrino interactions.
I just turned off my ad blocker to see how bad it is. Because with it turned on I didn't see any popups.
They have Google ads on their site promoting a paid ad free version of their site? WTF? Why would you pay google to put ads for on your site for your own service?
i don't presume to know whether Cthulhu is the hero we need or the hero we deserve.
I love the patience involved in this kind of science.
There aren't a lot of places with multiple km of water without things like animal life or other confounders.
Uniformity of the light field is going to be different, but that is not my sub-domain.
Higher energy = "easier" to detect (produce more light or radio emission), but the events are rarer so you want to build a bigger detector.
There are also underwater pools of water being used :) (KM3Net,P-ONE, Baikal-GVD, etc.)
When a high-energy particle (cosmic ray, say) hits ice, it creates an interaction cascade. (Think of what the Fly's Eye experiment sees, but in ice.) That interaction cascade creates (among other things) a radio signal. This detector is a radio detector under Antarctic ice, looking for exactly that.
The point is that, if a high-energy neutrino were to hit the ice, it could create the same kind of cascade, but it would make it much further into the ice. By having multiple detectors, they can pin down the location, and so they can try to tell the difference between "regular" cosmic rays and high-energy neutrinos.
The detector seems to be functioning as designed. They have seven candidate neutrino interactions.
They have Google ads on their site promoting a paid ad free version of their site? WTF? Why would you pay google to put ads for on your site for your own service?