Mechanism is via conversion of neutrinos into charged particles which are then detected via Cherenkov radiation which is produced when a charged particle moves with speeds larger then the speed of light in the medium. (That is only possible because it is less than the speed of light in vacuum which cannot be exceeded.)
If anyone was wondering how some of that heavy stuff gets to the south pole to build such a large engineering project, at the farthest possible end of any logistics chain:
I appreciate the boldness of this project, it has an element of sci-fi to it. Building a base at the south pole to bury sensors in ice to measure elusive particles. The stuff of dreams!
To be fair, the base was already there and logistically essential. The IceCube topside building is just a part of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, about a km or so from the Elevated Station.
We think of receiving a Nobel Prize as something super rare and exceptional and it is. What still always astounds me though, is this:
There are nearly 300 living laureates. Enough to hold a yearly meetup for them in Lindau, where usually about 40 gather. This year, for the event's 75th anniversary, there were even about 70. Imagine that.
IIRC Oppenheimer facilitated / sponsored a meeting there after the Manhattan Project, as a gathering where physicists could talk freely about physics for a change.
I wonder - was there really no other people they could have given it to? The detection of gravitational waves was split between a theorist, experimentalist and a person who had a big hand in shepherding the project along. Could not the same have been done here?
Neutrino physics is the frontier. It’s one area where we know there are “physics beyond the standard model” though IceCube hasn’t quite been able to answer the neutrino mass question.
That's an uncharitable take. The proposed observatory was through pristine dense forest, and one of the most important elephant corridors in Asia. It was opposed by the democratically elected government, and litigated in courts in an open and transparent way. The physics gains do not outweigh the environmental cost, and the fact that scientists were able to get valuable data from an observatory in the lifeless Antarctic is further justification not to build this.
IceCube observatory is for studying the high energy cosmic neutrinos from a distant galaxy or black holes. But the one proposed INO is to study the low and medium energy atmospheric neutrinos. INO was designed to study the mass ordering of neutrinos. Both observatories are for studying different aspects and properties of neutrinos and are not the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory
Mechanism is via conversion of neutrinos into charged particles which are then detected via Cherenkov radiation which is produced when a charged particle moves with speeds larger then the speed of light in the medium. (That is only possible because it is less than the speed of light in vacuum which cannot be exceeded.)
This was also discussed recently if you are interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49655286
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=south+pol...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pole_Traverse
https://octanepress.com/content/south-pole-traverse_antartic...
Significant amounts of things still come in by air cargo at great cost, but a lot also comes the long slow way.
Thanks, I had no idea this was possible!
https://xkcd.com/1053/
I appreciate the boldness of this project, it has an element of sci-fi to it. Building a base at the south pole to bury sensors in ice to measure elusive particles. The stuff of dreams!
https://www.infographics.se/
https://www.behance.net/JohanJarnestad
There are nearly 300 living laureates. Enough to hold a yearly meetup for them in Lindau, where usually about 40 gather. This year, for the event's 75th anniversary, there were even about 70. Imagine that.
IIRC Oppenheimer facilitated / sponsored a meeting there after the Manhattan Project, as a gathering where physicists could talk freely about physics for a change.
https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2011-february-13...
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/why-the-neu...