{"id":425982,"date":"2025-09-15T09:58:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425982\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T09:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:58:13","slug":"physicists-introduce-concept-of-neutrino-laser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425982\/","title":{"rendered":"Physicists Introduce Concept of Neutrino Laser"},"content":{"rendered":"

Super-cooling radioactive atoms could produce a laser-like neutrino beam, according to a duo of physicists from MIT and the University of Texas at Arlington. As an example, the authors calculated that such a neutrino laser could be realized by trapping 1 million atoms of rubidium-83. Normally, the radioactive atoms have a half-life of about 82 days, meaning that half the atoms decay, shedding an equivalent number of neutrinos, every 82 days. They show that, by cooling rubidium-83 to a coherent, quantum state, the atoms should undergo radioactive decay in mere minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"B.J.P.<\/a><\/p>\n

B.J.P. Jones & J.A. Formaggio devise an idea for a laser that shoots a beam of neutrinos. Image credit: Gemini AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our concept for a neutrino laser, the neutrinos would be emitted at a much faster rate than they normally would, sort of like a laser emits photons very fast,\u201d said Dr. Ben Jones, a researcher at the University of Texas at Arlington.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a novel way to accelerate radioactive decay and the production of neutrinos, which to my knowledge, has never been done,\u201d added MIT Professor Joseph Formaggio.<\/p>\n

Several years ago, Professor Formaggio and Dr. Jones separately considered a novel possibility: what if a natural process of neutrino production could be enhanced through quantum coherence?<\/p>\n

Initial explorations revealed fundamental roadblocks in realizing this.<\/p>\n

Years later, while discussing the properties of ultracold tritium they asked: could the production of neutrinos be enhanced if radioactive atoms such as tritium could be made so cold that they could be brought into a quantum state known as a Bose-Einstein condensate?<\/p>\n

They also wondered, if radioactive atoms could be made into a Bose-Einstein condensate, would this enhance the production of neutrinos in some way? In trying to work out the quantum mechanical calculations, they found initially that no such effect was likely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned out to be a red herring \u2014 we can\u2019t accelerate the process of radioactive decay, and neutrino production, just by making a Bose-Einstein condensate,\u201d Professor Formaggio said.<\/p>\n

Several years later, Dr. Jones revisited the idea, with an added ingredient: superradiance \u2014 a phenomenon of quantum optics that occurs when a collection of light-emitting atoms is stimulated to behave in sync.<\/p>\n

In this coherent phase, it\u2019s predicted that the atoms should emit a burst of photons that is superradiant, or more radiant than when the atoms are normally out of sync.<\/p>\n

The physicists proposed that perhaps a similar superradiant effect is possible in a radioactive Bose-Einstein condensate, which could then result in a similar burst of neutrinos.<\/p>\n

They went to the drawing board to work out the equations of quantum mechanics governing how light-emitting atoms morph from a coherent starting state into a superradiant state.<\/p>\n

They used the same equations to work out what radioactive atoms in a coherent Bose-Einstein condensate state would do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome is: You get a lot more photons more quickly, and when you apply the same rules to something that gives you neutrinos, it will give you a whole bunch more neutrinos more quickly,\u201d Professor Formaggio said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when the pieces clicked together, that superradiance in a radioactive condensate could enable this accelerated, laser-like neutrino emission.\u201d<\/p>\n

To test their concept in theory, the researchers calculated how neutrinos would be produced from a cloud of 1 million super-cooled rubidium-83 atoms.<\/p>\n

They found that, in the coherent Bose-Einstein condensate state, the atoms radioactively decayed at an accelerating rate, releasing a laser-like beam of neutrinos within minutes.<\/p>\n

Now that they have shown in theory that a neutrino laser is possible, they plan to test the idea with a small tabletop setup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be enough to take this radioactive material, vaporize it, trap it with lasers, cool it down, and then turn it into a Bose-Einstein condensate,\u201dDr. Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it should start doing this superradiance spontaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair acknowledge that such an experiment will require a number of precautions and careful manipulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it turns out that we can show it in the lab, then people can think about: Can we use this as a neutrino detector? Or a new form of communication? That\u2019s when the fun really starts,\u201d Professor Formaggio said.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s paper<\/a> was published today in the journal Physical Review Letters.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

B.J.P. Jones & J.A. Formaggio. 2025. Superradiant Neutrino Lasers from Radioactive Condensates. Phys. Rev. Lett 135, 111801; doi: 10.1103\/l3c1-yg2l<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Super-cooling radioactive atoms could produce a laser-like neutrino beam, according to a duo of physicists from MIT and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[70832,145461,136961,18399,145462,27687,145463,74,145464,81438,145465,70,112756,39468,74457,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-425982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-atom","9":"tag-bose-einstein-condensate","10":"tag-isotope","11":"tag-laser","12":"tag-laser-beam","13":"tag-neutrino","14":"tag-neutrino-laser","15":"tag-physics","16":"tag-radioactive-decay","17":"tag-rubidium","18":"tag-rubidium-83","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-superradiance","21":"tag-temperature","22":"tag-tritium","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115207727522471572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}