@spacemagick @jimdonegan So, here's my stab at answering this question, so if it isn't clear let me know. Firstly, the hypothesis here is that by generating neutrinos in the first place, you are generating both neutrinos, and anti-neutrinos in the same beam. The purpose in the DUNE experiment is to determine if the hypothesis is true. The hypothesis in question is derived from a theoretical model that mathematically predicts the existence of neutrinos with two states, that is the positive or right-spin neutrino, and the negative or left-spin neutrino (antineutrino). The physicists are predicting that generated neutrinos have a left-spin or a right-spin, and if you throw a bunch of them at a detector, you'll get two distinct results, e.g. you'll see a big clump of data with x-value, and another big clump of data with y-value, meaning that there do exist both neutrinos and antineutrinos, or more specifically, that neutrinos have two spin states verifying the hypothesis set out by the scientists.

@beunice @spacemagick

It is not for nothing that #Leptogenesis is a bit controversial amongst experts. It's not something I fully understand myself. I do think that the #Fermilab explanation is quite good though. They have covered the issue twice, I think, given the questions raised by it.

@jimdonegan @beunice
I don't think I've ever read anything about experimental neutrino physics that didn't make me think that the Universe is laughing at our puny attempts to wrangle them into some sort of order.
'Sphaleron' is possibly the best technical term ever dreamt up for a physical process.
#neutrinos #Fermilab #leptogenisis

@spacemagick @beunice

Totally agree. Lots of topics in #Physics are like that. One of the things I appreciate about the (natural) lack of certainty in the sciences is that it makes room for #Philosophy to make a contribution in terms of clarification and ruling out illogical statements etc. Neutrinos are notoriously difficult to study, too. Experiments are typically expensive and hard to instanciate. I am absolutely sure that they have more surprises for us in store.

@jimdonegan @spacemagick Yeah, this stuff is very shot-in-the-dark kind of research, and this field is going to pop out some incredibly bizarre stuff we can be certain of. I had a really interesting conversation with a quantum physicist once and this guy was pretty prolific in the field, but he was constantly re-iterating how anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand quantum mechanics. I think that the results we are going to see out of particle physics over the next few decades are going to yield similar results which to my mind is tremendously exciting.
@beunice @jimdonegan
I'm old enough to remember Feynman saying that the first time :-)
(And it's still true.)
Agreed - neutrino research in particular always brings exciting answers accompanied by ever weirder questions. Personally I'd like to see (somebody cover Sabine Hossenfelder's eyes at this point) the LHC upgraded by a factor of about twenty (at least) - that should bury a lot of dead end ideas and open the way to even more exciting stuff.
#particle #physics

@spacemagick @beunice

Yes! You'd think they'd have buried #SuperSymmetry by now 😃