Ice cube ready to detect neutrinos

2011/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Fisika
• Astrofisika

The Cube of Ice has already concluded the neutrino observatory carried out in the ice of the South Pole. They began to be built in 2004 and have taken all these years to finish. And it is that it is not any project.

The Ice Cube is an authentic ice cube, of gigantic dimensions, which begins at 1,5 km depth below the surface and continues at another kilometer down. These measures are necessary due to the lack of shocks against the matter of neutrinos. According to physicists, of the trilliocas neutrins that pass through the ice daily, the Ice Cube will only detect a few hundred times a day.

For its detection, the Ice Cube has a network of optical sensors. Precisely when neutrinos collide with the oxygen atoms in the ice, charged particles called muons and side products are formed. As these muons travel faster than light in the ice, the sensors produce detectable radiation, Cherenkov radiation. Subsequently, they convert the signal detected in digital information. Given that this information is much more accurate than the observatories could so far obtain, scientists hope that in this field of physics there will be great advances, such as knowledge of the sun, supernovae and dark matter.