On September 28 2011 06:39 mmp wrote: Couldn't they repeat the study over a different range. If it's actually a speedup then it should be pronounced over a larger distance.
A neutrino detector is a ridiculously large piece of equipment, and the accelerator is like 7km long. To change the source-detector distance, you basically have to build a whole new facility, at least for the detector. Fermilab and a couple of consortia that are already set up for this are looking to reproduce the experiment with different equipment, as well.
So changing the distance is absolutely the best thing to do, but it's not easy in the slightest.
Couldn't they use the Japanese Neutrinos detector (Super-K) ?
On September 28 2011 06:39 mmp wrote: Couldn't they repeat the study over a different range. If it's actually a speedup then it should be pronounced over a larger distance.
A neutrino detector is a ridiculously large piece of equipment, and the accelerator is like 7km long. To change the source-detector distance, you basically have to build a whole new facility, at least for the detector. Fermilab and a couple of consortia that are already set up for this are looking to reproduce the experiment with different equipment, as well.
So changing the distance is absolutely the best thing to do, but it's not easy in the slightest.
Couldn't they use the Japanese Neutrinos detector (Super-K) ?
On September 28 2011 06:39 mmp wrote: Couldn't they repeat the study over a different range. If it's actually a speedup then it should be pronounced over a larger distance.
A neutrino detector is a ridiculously large piece of equipment, and the accelerator is like 7km long. To change the source-detector distance, you basically have to build a whole new facility, at least for the detector. Fermilab and a couple of consortia that are already set up for this are looking to reproduce the experiment with different equipment, as well.
So changing the distance is absolutely the best thing to do, but it's not easy in the slightest.
Couldn't they use the Japanese Neutrinos detector (Super-K) ?
All the stuff in cyan and orange can be thought of as the barrel of the neutrino gun. It's been built specifically to point at LNGS. To redirect it to somewhere like Japan, you need to move that entire section.
When you realise that the section itself is about half a kilometer long and exists in purpose-built tunnels a hundred meters underground, and would probably have to angle like 40-degrees deeper into the earth to hit Super-K, it becomes apparent how difficult it is to do that. And that's even before you start to think about things like pulling particles off the accelerator at such an angle.
I don't even know if super-K has the accuracy they'd need to confirm the result, and whether the extra distance and intervening medium would change things. Also, if you use the same accelerator but a different detector and you find the same result, you haven't ruled out the possibility that it's something in CERN's setup that's causing the discrepancy.
On October 18 2011 12:42 Antisocialmunky wrote: Man, I wish I could publish 4 page papers with 5 references...
It is a rather concise paper with a very narrow point though D: (and rather basic physics).
It would be kinda disappointing if they missed something so simple that someone could basically whip up a paper and put it through the publishing process in under 1 month. :|
If neutrinos were indeed faster than light, then we would have detected neutrinos from a supernova (one of the recent ones) almost 4 years before the light reached us. Instead, the neutrinos were detected seconds before the light hit us (which has an explanation in how supernova explode) - this alone should cause serious doubts.
In addition, the time different found is only a few meters difference- it's quite possible that a tiny, tiny earthquake, one of the ones that's always occuring, could have shifted the two far enough apart.
EPT
