{"id":42676,"date":"2023-03-13T10:53:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T10:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=116954"},"modified":"2023-03-13T11:32:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T11:32:32","slug":"neutrinos-could-explain-why-the-universe-didnt-just-disappear-after-the-big-bang","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/neutrinos-could-explain-why-the-universe-didnt-just-disappear-after-the-big-bang\/","title":{"rendered":"Neutrinos could explain why the Universe didn\u2019t just disappear after the Big Bang"},"content":{"rendered":"

Studying the fundamental particles known as neutrinos could reveal why there is any matter in the Universe at all. <\/p>

By Melissa Brobby\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 13 March 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Neutrinos are truly fundamental, almost massless, neutral particles, and are some of the elementary building blocks of our Universe.<\/p>\n

Yet neutrinos break the rules. And what\u2019s more, they could help explain why the Universe didn\u2019t just disappear in a flash of light after the Big Bang<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neutrinos come in three different types: tau, muon and electron neutrinos.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, theoretical physicists wrote the rule book on particle interactions \u2013 known as the \u2018standard model\u2019 \u2013 which has been very solid for more than 50 years now.<\/p>\n

Dr Elena Gramellini is a Lederman Fellow at Fermilab<\/a> whose field of research is experimental particle physics and neutrino detectors.<\/span><\/p>\n

We spoke to Dr Gramellini to find out more about these cosmic building blocks, and what they can tell us about the early Universe.<\/p>\n

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How do neutrinos break the rules?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

They were assumed to be massless, and yet we have experimental proof that they do carry a tiny mass, thanks to the observation of \u2018neutrino oscillations\u2019, a phenomenon that makes neutrinos change flavour, so to speak, during their propagation.<\/p>\n

For example, most neutrinos from the Sun are electron neutrinos, but about two-thirds turn into one of the other two types by the time they get to Earth.<\/p>\n

Their behaviour could help explain why the Universe did not simply disappear in a flash of light just after the Big Bang.<\/p>\n

What can neutrinos tell us about the early Universe? <\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Neutrinos could help answer the matter\u2013antimatter asymmetry problem. We know that antimatter<\/a> exists, but we live in a Universe that\u2019s overwhelmingly made of matter.<\/p>\n

This is strange because there\u2019s nothing that makes matter special compared to antimatter, in terms of fundamental interactions.<\/p>\n

They should have been created in equal parts in the early Universe.<\/p>\n

It must be that there\u2019s a mechanism where for every billion particles of antimatter, a billion plus one particles of matter were created \u2013 a violation of the symmetry between matter and antimatter.<\/p>\n

We know the fundamental components of protons, quarks, are partly responsible, but not enough to explain the overwhelming difference between matter and antimatter we see.<\/p>\n

By studying the oscillation patterns of neutrinos, we can understand how neutrinos contribute to this violation.<\/p>\n