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CCAPP symposium sets cosmological agenda

Posted on | October 21, 2009 | 647 views |

By Pam Frost Gorder

Researchers are trekking to the ends of the Earth to probe the furthest reaches of space.

The inaugural conference of Ohio State’s Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics (CCAPP) earlier this month hosted a reunion for some of these unique Antarctic explorers.

CCAPP Postdoctoral Fellow Michael Stamatikos — a South Pole veteran — organized the conference, called “Towards Fundamental Breakthroughs in Astrophysics and Cosmology within the Next Decade.”

Today’s top minds in astrophysics and cosmology gathered to build a consensus on such topics as what the universe is made of and how the galaxies formed.

“As we explore the cosmos throughout the next decade, we’re poised to answer some of nature’s most enigmatic questions via an unprecedented scientific synergy of ground-based and satellite detectors such as Swift, Fermi and IceCube,” Stamatikos said.

Since the participants came from many different research fields, each using different methods for studying the universe, the conference let them build common ground. It also pointed to fundamental questions that still remain.

One major question is the source of high-energy cosmic ray particles that stream through the universe.

Neutrinos may hold the key. These tiny invisible particles are traveling so fast and with such high energy that every second, untold billions of them pass right through our planet as if it wasn’t here. Do they come from exploding stars? Black holes? Collisions in the early universe? All of the above?

Researchers aim to find out. Their most advanced telescope is taking shape at the South Pole right now.

University of Wisconsin-Madison physicist Francis Halzen, principal investigator of the project, reported in his public lecture Oct. 12 that the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is more than half finished.

Since 2005, scientists including Stamatikos have traveled to the pole to plant strands of light detectors, each a kilometer long, under the ice.

When they’re done, 80 strands will dangle like branches of a giant chandelier forever frozen in place.

Over a dozen times a day, a neutrino collides with an atom of ice, creating a flash of blue light that the IceCube will detect. In fact, the detectors that are in place have already seen thousands of neutrino events, which have been consistent with an atmospheric origin thus far.

Halzen expects that IceCube will reveal astrophysical neutrinos within a few years. That is, unless a nearby star were to explode in a supernova. In that case, scientists could be sure that the flood of new particles came from a specific source.

“We would get 10 years’ worth of physics in 10 seconds,” Halzen said.

Ethan Dicks, Ohio State alumnus and information technology consultant, was on hand at the lecture. Two of his six trips to Antarctica found him assembling the IceCube detector strands and lowering them into the ice.

Deadlines for building the telescope have to be flexible, as all activity on the continent is at the mercy of the weather, Dicks explained. Stations can be shut down, with no travel in and out for days or weeks at a time.

“On Antarctica, things happen… when they happen,” Dicks said. “You get used to it.”

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