The origins of high-energy 中微子 have been traced for the very first time, solving an important astronomic mystery
了解和了解更多 能源 还是物质，对神秘的亚原子粒子的研究是非常关键的。 物理学家研究亚原子粒子—— 中微子 – to gain further understanding of the different events and processes from which they have originated. We know about stars and particularly the sun by studying 中微子. There is so much more to be learnt about the 宇宙 对于任何对物理学和天文学感兴趣的科学家来说，了解中微子如何发挥作用是最重要的一步。
什么是中微子？
Neutrinos are vaporous (and very volatile) particles with almost no mass, no electric charge and they can pass through any type of matter without any alteration in themselves. Neutrinos can achieve this by withstanding extreme conditions and dense environments like stars, 行星 和 星系. An important trait of neutrinos is that they never interact with the matter in their surroundings and this makes them very challenging to analyse. Also, they exist in three “flavours” – electron, tau and muon and they switch between these flavours when they are oscillating. This is called the “mixing” phenomena and this is the strangest area of study when conducting experiments on neutrinos. The strongest characteristics of neutrinos is that they carry unique information about their exact origin. This is mainly because neutrinos are though highly energetic, they possess no charge therefore they remain unaffected by magnetic fields of any power. The origin of neutrinos is not completely known. Most of them come from the sun but a small number especially the ones having high energies come from deeper regions of 空间. This is the reason that the exact origin of these elusive wanderers was still unknown and they are referred to as “ghost particles”.
追踪高能中微子的起源
在天文学中发表的开创性双胞胎研究中 科学, researchers have for the first time traced the origin of a ghostly sub-atomic particle neutrino which was found deep in ice in Antarctica after it travelled 3.7 billion years to 行星 地球1,2. This work is achieved by a collaboration of over 300 scientists and 49 institutions. High-energy neutrinos were detected by largest ever IceCube detector set up at South Pole by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory deep into the layers of ice. To achieve their goal, 86 holes were drilled into ice, each one and half miles deep, and spread over a network of more than 5000 light sensors thus covering a total area of 1 cubic kilometre. IceCube detector, managed by US National Science Foundation, is a giant detector consisting of 86 cables which are put in boreholes extending up to deep ice. The detectors record the special blue light which is emitted when a neutrino interacts with an atomic nucleus. Many high-energy neutrinos were detected but they were untraceable until a neutrino with an energy of 300 trillion electron volts was detected successfully beneath an ice cap. This energy is almost 50 times bigger than the energy of the protons which cycle through Large Hardon Collider which is the utmost powerful particle accelerator on this 行星. Once this detection was done, a real time system methodically gathered and compiled data, for the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from laboratories on Earth and in 空间 about this neutrino’s origin.
The neutrino was successfully traced back to a luminous 星系 known as the “blazer”. Blazer is a gigantic elliptical active 星系 with two jets which emit neutrinos and gamma rays. It has a distinctive supermassive and swiftly spinning 黑洞 at its centre and the 星系 moves towards Earth around the speed of light. One of the jets of the blazer is of a blazing bright character and it points directly at earth giving this 星系 its name. The blazer 星系 is located to the left of Orion constellation and this distance is about 4 billion light-years from Earth. Both neutrinos and gamma rays were detected by the observatory and also a total of 20 telescopes on Earth and in 空间. This first study1 showed the detection of neutrinos and a second subsequent study2 showed that the blazer 星系 had produced these neutrinos earlier also in 2014 and 2015. The blazer is definitely a source of extremely energetic neutrinos and thus of cosmic rays as well.
天文学的突破性发现
这些中微子的发现是一项重大成功，它可以使研究和观测中微子成为可能。 宇宙 以无与伦比的方式。科学家表示，这一发现可能有助于他们首次追溯神秘宇宙射线的起源。这些射线是原子碎片，从太阳系外部以光速照射到地球。它们被指责给卫星、通信系统等造成问题。与中微子相反，宇宙射线是带电粒子，因此磁场不断影响和改变它们的路径，这使得无法追溯到它们的起源。宇宙射线长期以来一直是天文学研究的主题，尽管它于 1912 年被发现，但它仍然是一个大谜团。
未来，使用与本研究中使用的类似基础设施的更大规模的中微子观测站可以更快地获得结果，并且可以进行更多的检测以揭示中微子的新来源。这项研究通过记录多个观察结果并认识整个电磁频谱的数据，对于进一步了解电磁波谱至关重要。 宇宙 控制它的物理机制。这是“多信使”天文学的一个主要例证，它使用至少两种不同类型的信号来检查宇宙，使其更加强大和准确，使此类发现成为可能。这种方法帮助发现了中子星碰撞，也帮助发现了中子星碰撞。 引力波 在最近的过去。这些使者中的每一个都为我们提供了关于 宇宙 以及气氛中的重大事件。此外，它还可以帮助我们更多地了解数百万年前发生的极端事件，这些事件促使这些粒子前往地球。
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{您可以通过单击下面引用来源列表中给出的 DOI 链接来阅读原始研究论文}
来源（S）
1.The IceCube Collaboration 等。 2018. 对与高能中微子 IceCube-170922A 重合的燃烧耀变体的多信使观测。 科学. 361（6398）。 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat1378
2.The IceCube Collaboration 等。 2018. 在 IceCube-0506A 警报之前，来自耀变体 TXS 056+170922 方向的中微子发射。 科学. 361（6398）。 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2890
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