These Universe Simulations Set New Records in an Attempt to Solve a 'Tiny' Problem

 

Simulation of large scale structures of the Universe (University of Tsukuba)

What is a neutrino's mass? For decades, physicists have struggled with this issue. It's tiny, to be sure, but it can't be zero because of one of the particle's most fundamental characteristics. This still leaves a lot of opportunity for speculation.

The solution, like most puzzles, may be found by thinking outside the box.

Physicists from Japan's University of Tsukuba, Kyoto University, and University of Tokyo have taken this advice to heart, developing a breakthrough new way for modelling a large portion of the Universe to serve as a test bed for neutrinos' subtle influence on the evolution of the cosmos.

It's a notion that's already been put to the test. The researchers behind this new model believe they can overcome some of the flaws of the previous method by using a simulation employed in other fields of physics.

Since their experimental discovery in the mid-1950s, neutrinos have been a theoretical member of the standard model of physics since 1930.

This ghost-like particle should have the same masslessness as a photon. However, scientists discovered a little over two decades ago that they not only come in a variety of forms, or ‘flavors' but that they also oscillate between them as they move.

As a result, physicists are certain that neutrinos must have some sort of mass. Even if it's a speck on the horizon. If neutrinos didn't have mass, they'd travel at the speed of light in a vacuum, and time would stop for them, so they wouldn't be changing at all.

Laboratory searches for a precise mass have set top limits on how chunky a neutrino could become, capping it at 1/500,000 of a single electron. So, it's safe to say that somewhere between zip and 1/500,000th of an electron's mass, we have our answer.

This new method might just get us a bit closer to that amount, however it's hard not to see the irony in rebuilding the majority of the Universe to weigh something that hardly exists.

Fortunately, the neutrino makes up for its lack of power with enormous numbers.

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