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Special relativity validated by neutrinos

Neutrinos are tiny, ghost-like particles that habitually change identity. A measurement of the rate of change in high-energy neutrinos racing through Earth provides a record-breaking test of Einstein’s special theory of relativity.
  1. Matthew Mewes

    1. Matthew Mewes is in the Department of Physics, College of Science and Mathematics, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California 93407, USA.

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The existence of extremely light, electrically neutral particles called neutrinos was first postulated in 1930 to explain an apparent violation of energy conservation in the decays of certain unstable atomic nuclei. Writing in Nature Physics, the IceCube Collaboration1 now uses neutrinos seen in the world’s largest particle detector to scrutinize another cornerstone of physics: Lorentz invariance. This principle states that the laws of physics are independent of the speed and orientation of the experimenter’s frame of reference, and serves as the mathematical foundation for Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Scouring their data for signs of broken Lorentz invariance, the authors carry out one of the most stringent tests of special relativity so far, and demonstrate how the peculiarities of neutrinos can be used to probe the foundations of modern physics.

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Nature 560, 316-317 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05931-2

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