STOCKHOLM: The Belgian-American Francis Halzen gained the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work creating an Antarctic observatory of ice to detect high-energy neutrinos, elusive subatomic particles that may reveal in any other case inaccessible details about the cosmos.
Halzen, 82, realised that pristine ice on the South Pole might be used to trace such neutrinos, typically generally known as “ghost particles” for the way in which they cross by means of the Earth and not using a hint, solely interacting with matter extraordinarily not often.
“The messengers deliver info from the cosmos,” Eva Olsson, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, instructed a press convention. “They open the door to distant galaxies and inform us concerning the processes of exploding stars.”
HALZEN HAILED FOR DETECTING “MESSENGERS FROM THE COSMOS”
The interactions registered by the IceCube observatory present details about how high-energy neutrinos are created and will even reveal beforehand unknown phenomena, the Academy stated.
In 2014, the US-based Smithsonian journal dubbed Halzen “Neutrino Man” when giving him considered one of its Ingenuity Awards, acclaiming him for an “superb experiment (that) heralds the start of a brand new period in astronomy”.
It even printed a comic book illustrating his life: “How One Physicist’s Pursuit of the Cosmos Took Off in Antarctica”.
The observatory – in impact a telescope that reveals neutrinos as an alternative of sunshine – is about in a cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice, which extends to a depth of two,500 metres under the floor close to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
Greater than 5,000 sensors await blips from the almost massless high-energy neutrinos, which in contrast to different particles don’t lose power or change path, within the hope of tracing their paths again to exploding stars, gamma-ray bursts, and cataclysmic phenomena involving black holes and neutron stars. They’ll anticipate to register about one per day.
Halzen, a professor on the College of Wisconsin–Madison in the USA, first introduced his thought in 1988 for capturing neutrino traces on the South Pole, however the mission was not accomplished till 2011.
“I’ve to stress how fortunate I used to be as a result of, after we began this mission, all people realised this was possibly a good suggestion, however only a few thought it might work, together with myself,” Halzen instructed the press convention by phone.
Neutrinos are electrically impartial, undisturbed by any magnetic subject, which implies that, in distinction to electromagnetic waves reminiscent of seen mild, the path from which they arrive factors instantly again to their supply.
