{"id":178702,"date":"2016-08-30T10:09:18","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T14:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=178702"},"modified":"2016-09-15T08:33:09","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T12:33:09","slug":"neutrinos-matter-early-universe-178702","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/neutrinos-matter-early-universe-178702\/","title":{"rendered":"Why neutrinos \u2018matter\u2019 in the early universe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Iwamoto Konosuke. (University photo \/ J. Adam Fenster)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Physicists love good symmetry\u2014and that love is more than aesthetic appeal. One of the more important symmetries in all of science is the one between antimatter and matter.<\/p>\n

Energy in the early universe was transformed into equal parts of matter and antimatter. Barring anything else, those equal parts should have destroyed each other and left us with no matter with which to make stars and planets, and people and dogs.<\/p>\n

So physicists reason that something must have broken the matter-antimatter symmetry in the early universe, leaving us with a universe dominated by, well, stuff\u2014one in which we (and dogs) can exist. The puzzle of how<\/em> the matter-antimatter symmetry was broken is one of the great questions that particle physicists are trying to answer.<\/p>\n

University of Rochester graduate student, Konosuke (Ko) Iwamoto, updated the physics world on this question at the 38th biennial International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP)<\/a><\/strong>, in Chicago earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Iwamoto presented the highly anticipated findings from the Japan-based T2K neutrino experiment collaboration concerning the minute differences in the oscillations of subatomic particles called neutrinos and antineutrinos. (Almost every particle has an antimatter counterpart: a particle with the same mass but opposite charge.)<\/p>\n

The new results suggest that the matter-antimatter symmetry may have been broken by neutrinos. T2K\u2019s experiments show that neutrinos and antineutrinos behave differently\u2014the imbalance may have disrupted the matter\/antimatter balance. Though the results are not conclusive\u2014there is a 1-in-20 chance that their results are a fluke\u2014but physicists are excited about the findings and further data gathering from T2K and other experiments is underway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is fabulous that Ko was chosen to present the findings of the T2K collaboration at ICHEP,\u201d says Rochester professor of physics, Steven Manly<\/a><\/strong>. \u201cICHEP is the biggest international conference in particle physics and it was started in the 1950s by the then chair of Rochester\u2019s physics department, Robert Marshak. Everyone still calls it the \u2018Rochester conference.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n