Tuesday, September 21, 2010

AntiNeutrino surprise at MINOS

One of the fundamental principles of particle physics is that particles and their anti-particles should have the same mass.  So it was a big surprise when Fermilab MINOS collaboration found that the muon neutrino and muon antineutrino appear to have different masses.  Neutrino experiments are extraordinarily difficult because neutrinos are so hard to detect.  This result is still very preliminary.  But if it does hold up, the impact on theoretical physics will be earthshaking.
See Neutrino surprise emerges from MINOS at PhysicsWorld .