Physicists Discover Shape-Shifting Particles: Muon Neutrinos Transform

It's a new breakthrough when it comes to particle physics. Scientists have made the first definitive observation of the transformation of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos. This type of neutrino oscillation has never been seen before and could help researchers explore a fundamental question of science--why the universe made up almost exclusively of matter rather than antimatter.

When the Big Bang occurred, equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created. Over time, though, this balance shifted and matter dominated. The mechanism for this particular phenomenon to occur could lie in a process called charge-parity (CP) violation.

Until recently, scientists weren't sure whether or not it would be feasible to actually explore CP violation in neutrinos. The process has only been observed in another type of matter, quarks, and never before in neutrinos. Yet this new experiment, called the T2K experiment, showed that researchers can now accurately observe the type of neutrino oscillation that will need to be studied in detail in future experiments aiming to measure CP violation.

The experiment itself involved a muon neutrino beam, which was produced in the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. This beam was monitored by a detector complex and aimed at the gigantic Super-Kamiokande underground detector about 185 miles away. After analyzing the data, the researchers found that there are more electron neutrinos (a total of 28 events) than would be expected (4.6 events) without this new process.

"Our goal now is to push to better understand the errors in the measurements and continue to collect sufficient data to explore this possible CP violation," said Steven Manly, professor of physics at the University of Rochester, in a news release.

The researchers are now looking forward to further observing CP violation in neutrinos within the T2K experiment in coming years. It's possible that the asymmetry between matter and antimatter lies with neutrinos, which is why observing CP violation in neutrinos would be exciting.

Want to learn mroe about the experiment? Check it out here.