Francis Halzen has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of cosmic neutrinos. Neutrinos are subatomic particles that can pass through the Universe with little or no interaction with matter. Halzen’s work pioneered the use of neutrinos as a new window into the most extreme environments in space.
The challenge of detecting cosmic neutrinos
“Ghost particles” Since neutrinos don’t carry any electric charge, they don’t attract or repel anything, making them nearly impossible to track, yet hundreds of trillions of these particles racing through the Earth and our bodies every second. Halzen was among the driving forces behind the development of Ice Cube, a massive neutrino telescope beneath the Antarctic ice, which detects tiny bursts of light generated when particles called neutrinos hit something.
A telescope hidden beneath Antarctic ice
Like a giant particle detector, IceCube can look deep into the Antarctic ice. As an interacting high-energy neutrino interacts with matter in the ice, the neutrino can create charged particles that then pass through the ice and produce a diffuse blue glow called Cherenkov radiation. By studying where these flashes occurred, the team can determine the direction the neutrinos arrived from and how much energy they had. This technique has enabled the team to associate certain high-energy neutrinos with energetic celestial objects.
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Opening a new window on the universe
Cosmic neutrinos open another avenue of exploring the Universe, in addition to the physics and astronomy we already do with light and other types of radiation. Unlike light, neutrinos can penetrate even the densest regions of space without being absorbed or deflected. They are therefore able to reach Earth from places that would be impossible for ordinary telescopes to observe directly, and may provide clues about events like active galaxies, supermassive black holes, and other sources of cosmic radiation.
Why the breakthrough matters?
This is a major advance in the field of neutrino astronomy. Rather than simply observing what comes to us in the form of light, researchers can now use the particles themselves to look at some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe. It also shows what can be done when a radical idea employing kilometers of Antarctic ice as a telescope can redefine the fundamentals of physics. In rendering the virtually invisible visible, IceCube has opened up new frontiers for scientists investigating the origins of high-energy particles zipping through the universe.
