Neutrinos are elementary particles that have no mass and practically do not interact with matter. Scientists have proved that their source is a special kind of supermassive black holes called blazars.
Scientists have proved the connection of blazars and neutrinos
Researchers from the Universities of Würzburg and Geneva were able to prove the connection between blazars and neutrinos. Thanks to their observations, they were able to accurately establish that the former are the source of the latter and modeled the acceleration processes of matter, in which almost intangible elementary particles are born.
Blazars are a special class of active galactic nuclei. Like all such objects, they contain supermassive black holes on which matter falls. This process leads to the ejection of jets from the poles of the singularity at a speed approaching light. They differ from other quasars in that these jets are aimed exactly in our direction.
In order to prove the involvement of these objects in the formation of cosmic neutrinos, the researchers used data from the IceCube, the most powerful detector of these particles on Earth. With the help of a special program, they compared them with the most accurate catalog of BZCat blazars today.
Scientists have checked whether the distribution of neutrino sources is random. It turned out that they do not, and that they completely coincide with the manifested blazars. Moreover, the intensity of the radiation of these particles indicates that they are born precisely in the process of acceleration of matter.
What is a neutrino?
Formally, high-energy neutrinos refer to cosmic rays. This is the name of the whole set of particles coming to us from the depths of space. But they are very different from the rest of the spectrum, mainly delayed by the atmosphere and which is most convenient to observe in space.
Neutrino is a particle devoid of charge. There are several types of them and they can have significant energy. But whether they all have no rest mass, scientists are not sure. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to observe them, because they almost do not interact with matter.
Therefore, neutrino detectors are very different from other telescopes, which mainly work as lenses or mirrors that collect and focus radiation. “Telescopes” for detecting these weightless particles, as a rule, are huge containers with heavy water that have to be hidden deep underground. So at least some of these “invisibles” can react and give away their presence.
Mysterious source of high-energy neutrinos
Because of this source of cosmic neutrinos, it remained a mystery for a long time. Scientists knew that they should be formed at a much more energetic particle acceleration than in the Large Hadron Collider, but they could not say exactly where this happens.
The assumption that their source was blazars was put forward back in 2017. This was then proved for a separate object. Now it is clear that this conclusion applies to all such active galactic nuclei. But the mechanism by which the environment of a supermassive black hole generates neutrinos is not yet fully understood.
According to Рhys.org
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