NEUTRINO - The cOSMIC gHOST!!!

The phantom in the SPACE.............

Yes, I am talking about the NEUTRINOS – the ghost in the space, the tiny invisible particles which fill whole of the space, and pass through everything that comes their way (including us).

What is a neutrino???

An electrically neutral elementary particle with half-integer spin which fill the whole universe!  The name ‘neutrino’ is a Greek word meaning "little neutral one" and is denoted by the Greek letter ν (nu). They occur in three forms (flavours) — electron neutrino (νe), muon neutrino (νμ) and tau neutrino (ντ). Each flavor is also associated with an antiparticle, called an "antineutrino", which also has no electric charge and opposite half-integer spin. The particle (electron neutrino) was discovered/postulated in on 13 Nov 1970 by Wolfgang Pauli with the help of hydrogen bubble chamber where a neutrino hit a proton in a hydrogen atom and the collision occurred at the point where three tracks originate as shown in red in the picture below: 

Neutrinos do not carry any electric charge, which means that they are not affected by the electromagnetic force that acts on charged particles, and are leptons, so they are not affected by the strong force that acts on particles inside atomic nuclei. Neutrinos are therefore affected only by the weak subatomic force and by gravity (again a weak force). Thus, neutrinos typically pass through normal matter unimpeded and undetected. 

Recently, Takaaki Kajita (Tokyo) and Arthur B. McDonald (Canada) were awarded the physics Nobel on 6^th Oct 2015  for a  discovery that neutrinos oscillate — and thus, that they must have mass contradicting to the previous notion that they are massless. 

It has been discovered that they keep changing their shape, structure and properties like a chameleon or you can say - like a Ghost. The tiny particles are so numerous that trillions of them pass through our body every second. Can you feel that???

However the two bright minds conducted their own research and experiments –

Kajita used a special neutrino detector (Super-Kamiokande detector), a large tank in a zinc mine underground (carrying 50000 tons of super-purified water) in Japan in 1998. He claimed that neutrinos (muon neutrino) seemed to change pattern as they were approaching the detector.

While, McDonald used a 12-m-dia tank filled with ultra-pure heavy water in an underground nickel mine in Canada in 2001. He claimed that some of the neutrinos generated by the sun (electron neutrinos) seemed to disappear before they reached the detector, even though the overall count of neutrins remained the same.

Friends, Neutrinos are as fascinating and intriguing as ghosts. They are as old as this universe itself. They were produced during the Big Bang.  They’re generated in stars and during supernovae or bellies of nuclear power plants. Most importantly, they are supposed to play a major role in our existence. As per the scientists, everything (including us) that exists in the universe should have been annihilated until now due to collisions with the anti-matter. But if that has not happened, it seems to be because of these spectacular mysterious particles. 

These particles are incredibly hard to detect. Neutrinos move through the universe like phantoms, easily passing through Earth as if the entire planet weren’t there. Catching them in action is like trying to grab a ghost.

American novelist John Updike’s poem -"Cosmic Gall."is dedicated to this ghost –  

Neutrinos, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And, scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
And painless guillotines, they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed—you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.