An undersea detector in the Mediterranean Sea recorded a neutrino with an unprecedented energy level, potentially indicating its origin from cosmic rays interacting with background radiation.
An undersea detector off the coast of Sicily captured a groundbreaking neutrino event on February 13, 2023. The particle's energy was an astonishing 220 petaelectronvolts (PeV), dwarfing the previous record holder. This unprecedented energy level suggests it could be the very first cosmogenic neutrino detected, meaning it originated from cosmic rays interacting with photons from the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Neutrinos are elementary particles with no electric charge and an incredibly small mass, long thought to be zero. Billions of them pass through our bodies every second, but their interactions with matter are so rare that we remain oblivious. This faint interaction makes detecting neutrinos extremely challenging.Detecting them requires colossal volumes of material like water, carefully monitored with thousands of light sensors for the faintest flashes of light caused by neutrino interactions. The record-breaking neutrino was detected by one of two Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT) arrays, situated 3,450 meters beneath the Mediterranean Sea's surface. There, 378 modules, each housing 31 light detectors, scan the surrounding water for these elusive flashes. During the 2023 event, over 28,000 photons were detected as particles created by the neutrino's passage streaked across the detector volume. The spray of particles entered nearly horizontally, indicating the neutrino had traversed a considerable amount of Earth's crust before interacting with an atom within KM3NeT's detection range. The light itself originated from muons, another elementary particle produced during the cascading interactions. This muon was estimated to have an energy of around 120 PeV, exceptionally high for these particles. But it pales in comparison to its parent particle, the neutrino. What colossal event could propel a neutrino to such an extraordinary energy level?Because neutrinos interact minimally with matter, tracing their origins proves difficult. The team explored four hypotheses regarding the neutrino's source: a celestial object within our galaxy, something outside our galaxy but within the local Universe, a transient event like a gamma-ray burst, or a distant galaxy. None of the first three options seemed to align with the observed data, leading to the possibility of extragalactic sources, particularly active galactic nuclei (AGN) which are known to produce high-energy particles.Given the neutrino's immense energy, it would have originated from a highly active AGN. The researchers then focused on identifying blazars, a type of AGN known for producing jets of energetic particles, within the region of the sky where the neutrino originated. Twelve potential blazars were identified, but the investigation remains inconclusive. 'Given the vast number of blazars in the sky, none of these associations are compelling at this stage, and further research is required,' the authors stated.Another possibility is cosmogenic neutrino production, where high-energy particles are generated from cosmic rays interacting with the cosmic microwave background radiation. If confirmed, this would mark the first known detection of a neutrino produced through this mechanism. Further study is essential to unravel the mystery of this exceptional neutrino event
Neutrinos Km3net Cosmic Rays Blazars Cosmogenic Neutrinos High-Energy Physics
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