Neutrinos, aka “ghost particles,” are extremely elusive subatomic particles that have almost no mass and no electric charge. This virtual nonexistence lets them slip past all sorts of matter undetected. That’s why it was so odd that, in February 2023, one of them was detected as it shot past the Earth.
According to a new paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the neutrino alerted a detector hidden beneath the Mediterranean Sea and did so with an energy level so extreme that it dwarfed anything humans can produce. The particle carried roughly 30,000 times the energy of the ones CERN’s Large Hadron Collider smashed together.
The neutrino was detected by KM3NeT, a massive underwater observatory near Malta, but not by IceCube. Not the rapper, but rather KM3NeT’s equally sensitive counterpart embedded in Antarctic ice. IceCube has never recorded anything close to this particle’s power.
Elusive Neutrino Particle Fired Passed Earth In 2023, And We’re Still Not Sure Why
The weirdest part is that there was no obvious suspect explaining the sudden appearance of the neutrino. Where researchers might spot one thanks to a distant exploding star, or some highly active supermassive black hole, this one just… appeared.
The researchers offer a possible explanation that sounds like science fiction with some high-level math tossed in. A team led by University of Massachusetts Amherst physicist Andrea Thamm suggests the neutrino may have come from the explosive death of a primordial black hole. That’s a hypothetical leftover from the Big Bang that, again theoretically, is far smaller than stellar black holes but has never been directly observed.
The researchers say these black holes could be “quasi-external,” meaning their Hawking radiation is temporarily suppressed by an exotic form of matter known as “dark electrons,” which are also hypothetical.
Over time, dark electric charge builds up around the black hole until it can’t be contained anymore. The charge eventually leaks out, the black hole violently sheds its mass and produces a brief but intense explosion that releases neutrinos in a very specific energy range.
It’s with a narrow energy window that could explain why KM3NeT saw the particle while IceCube didn’t. It’s a fun theoretical answer, but obviously one built atop a lot of other bigger things that need to be proven first.
The model is just one possibility among many, and the truth will depend on whether future detectors catch more neutrinos like this one.
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