For the second time in history, scientists spot signs of a ghost particle that is a viable candidate for dark matter.
The MiniBooNE experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia was developed to follow up on the results of a well-known experiment in the 1990s.
After 15 years since its conception, MiniBooNE confirms the findings of the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector based at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which gave the world's first evidence of the existence of sterile neutrinos, despite other experiments suggesting otherwise.
Since the 1970s, the theory of the Standard Model has dominated the realm of particle physics. This theory acknowledges the existence of neutrinos, high-energy particles rushing through the universe barely interacting with matter. Every day, billions of neutrinos stream from the sun but have very little effect on human bodies.
The Standard Model dictates that neutrinos come in three types, or "flavors": electron, muon, and tau. As they race through space, these neutrinos oscillate from one flavor to another.
Physicists have proposed the existence a fourth flavor decades ago. Sterile neutrinos can pass through matter without interacting with it, except through gravity. If they exist, they would completely overthrow the Standard Model of particle physics as well as the prevailing notions that govern cosmology.
"There are other potential cracks in the standard picture," Carnegie Mellon physicist Scott Dodelson says. "The neutrino paradox could point our way to a new, better model."
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