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In March 2021, after years of analyzing and confirming the data, astrophysicists reported that the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a detector buried at the South Pole, picked up an unusual signal in 2016. It suggested that a particle called antineutrino had crossed space and time. – originating far beyond our galaxy – before hitting Antarctica and releasing a shower of particles in the ice.
According to the Standard Model of particle physics, every known type of particle has an antimatter counterpart (although there is hardly any trace of antimatter in the universe today). Over 60 years ago, future Nobel laureate Sheldon Glashow predicted that if an antineutrino – the nearly massless neutrino antimatter response – collided with an electron, it could produce a cascade of other particles. The phenomenon of “Glashow resonance” is difficult to detect, in large part because the antineutrino needs about 1,000 times more energy than what is produced in the most powerful colliders on Earth.
But IceCube’s detection is proof that cosmic accelerators in space could easily propel high-energy particles. “This is only possible with a natural accelerator, not ground accelerators,” says physicist Lu Lu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the analysis and helped confirm the event data. from 2016. “No one has ever directly observed resonance before.”
She says the detection is exciting for at least two reasons. First, it confirms the predictions of the Standard Model in physics. Second, it shows that by using IceCube, researchers can treat the cosmos as a natural, high-energy laboratory in which to probe new physics. “This opens a new window into neutrino astronomy,” she says.
