Detectors in the OPERA experiment of
the Italian National Nuclear Physics Institute (INFN) at the
Gran Sasso have detected that neutrinos travelling down at
almost light speed from the CERN lab in Switzerland are
shape-shifters and have a mass, according to a study published
in Physical Review Letters, a characteristic not envisaged by
current theories and which thus paves the way for a new physics.
The preliminary data on the capacity of neutrinos to
transform themselves date back to 2015 and now the "conclusive
proof" has arrived, physicist Giovanni De Lellis, coordinator of
the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus)
experiment, told ANSA.
It is a result not predicted by the Standard Model of nuclear
physics, according to which neutrinos do not have mass.
Now it is certain, furthermore, that neutrinos are able to
transform from one type to another inside the three families of
these particles: electronic neutrinos, muonic ones and tauonic
ones.
The data gathered by the OPERA experiment between 2008 and
2012, analysed using with a new technique, indicate that some 10
transformations of neutrinos from muonic to tauonic have been
observed.
"The results were better than expectations," said De Lellis,
and indicate in an "unequivocal" way that the transformation
occurred.
This phenomenon, he added, "could not happen if the neutrinos
did not have mass".
Now the challenge is to "understand the mechanism according
to which these particles have a mass," De Lellis went on to tell
ANSA.
The predictions of current theory, based on the Higg's boson,
"do not in fact succeed in explaining why neutrinos have such a
small mass".
This mass has been found to be one million times less than
that of an electron.
It is therefore necessary to find a different explanation,
which "will require years of work," De Lellis underscored to
ANSA.
He concluded that this will mean "elaborating a wider model,
which will broaden the Standard Model".
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