Ghost particles from the stars

Neutrinos are some of the Universe’s most elusive particles. Astronomers refer to them as ‘ghost particles’. Produced in nuclear reactions inside stars, trillions of these extremely light, electrically neutral particles flow through the cosmos almost entirely unaffected by the matter they pass through. These weak and rare interactions make them notoriously difficult to detect, even using the best neutrino detectors on Earth such as IceCube in Antarctica. Yet, by using advanced stellar models and ESA’s Gaia space telescope data, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have simulated the most detailed map of neutrinos created by stars in the Milky Way.

The team’s study, published in Physical Review D, revealed that most neutrinos that reach Earth are surging from the Milky Way’s dense centre, particularly from stars that are as massive or more massive than the Sun. Because neutrinos escape directly from stellar interiors or other high-energy events, they offer a unique window into processes that are hidden from conventional observation. They may also reveal new physical phenomena that we have yet to discover.

IceCube Lab

IceTop 81 stations 324 optical sensors IceCube Array 86 strings including 8 DeepCore strings 5160 optical sensors

50m

Amanda II Array (precursor to IceCube)

1450m

DeepCore 8 strings-spacing optimised for lower energies 480 optical sensors

2450m 2820m

Bedrock

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journals.aps.org/prd/ abstract/10.1103/ tw4t-jk8d