In 1987, astronomers counted 19 neutrinos from an explosion of a star in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, 19 out of the billion trillion trillion trillion trillion neutrinos that flew from the supernova. In just one second several tens of billions of neutrinos pass through every square centimetre of our bodies without us ever noticing. ... No magnetic field diverts them from their course, shooting straight ahead at almost the speed of light. ... Almost nothing stops them. In short, as undetectable as ether.
If this ubiquitous sea could be considered the ether sought by Michelson and others ... would this affect the whole theory of relativity (special and general)?
Michelson, Morley and Fizeau, in my understanding, were searching for a medium for the propagation of light, a substance whose oscillation would account for the propagation. You seem to be asking whether neutrinos could be that medium. However, such a picture explains nothing, since neutrinos are also fields propagating in empty space. The standard model now describes all particles/fields in this way, as fields in empty space. The question of a medium for any of the fundamental fields to oscillate in is not part of the model.
Of course not. Neutrinos have spin-so they are affected by magnetic fields (as measured in beta decay experiments for more than sixty years). Indeed their existence was deduced by the conservation laws in beta decay in 1931, long before they were discovered in 1954 (for the electron neutrino; the muon neutrino was discovered in 1962, but its existence was known before that, from the spectrum of muon decay. The tau neutrino was discovered directly quite recently, but it was known to exist for decades, from other measurements). They have well-known and precisely measured interactions with other particles that are documented for decades, cf. the Particle Data Group, http://pdg.lbl.gov/ and the subject is taught in all particle physics courses and ought to be common knowledge.
Thanks Stam. Particle physics is not what I dedicate myself, but I would like to know, what is the average macroscopic effect, measured in experiments on interaction between light and neutrinos.
Certainly, the neutrino spin is involved in a spin-orbit interaction whose main effect is the splitting of energy levels, which depends on the cosine of the angle between the directions of propagation of the photon and neutrino. If the contribution of neutrinos from all possible cosmic sources could be considered isotropic, the average effect of splitting would be annulled. Then, even considering the problem at the level of the quantum field theory, experiments as the Michelson-Morley one still are giving a null result. So, how can we rule out, experimentally, this sea of neutrinos-ether identification?
Michelson, Morley and Fizeau, in my understanding, were searching for a medium for the propagation of light, a substance whose oscillation would account for the propagation. You seem to be asking whether neutrinos could be that medium. However, such a picture explains nothing, since neutrinos are also fields propagating in empty space. The standard model now describes all particles/fields in this way, as fields in empty space. The question of a medium for any of the fundamental fields to oscillate in is not part of the model.
The Standard Model does not include the gravitational force, then, not all particles/fields are described. The interactions between neutrinos and photons, at least for the Schwarzschild metric, are well described in http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1412/1412.3522.pdf, and the global, gauge and gravitational anomalies present in the Standard Model defined on a curved space time should be considered DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.54.5185. The question still is, the ubiquitous sea of neutrinos, may be the medium in which light propagates? The splitting of energy levels can be considered a propagating disturbance equivalent to one photon?
I like to believe that neutrino waves propagate in a space time, whatever be the solution (the metric) chosen. . If they could propagate in vacuum, would cost explain which of all possible vacuum in the curved spacetime, propagation is referred.
Physics is an experimental science. Photons interact with particles that have electric charge or magnetic moment. Measurements show that neutrinos have zero charge and zero magnetic moment (with an extremely small experimental upper limit of a few 10^–19 Bohr magnetons. There is no interactions between photons and neutrinos.
In addition, Michelson was experimentally searching whether is possible or not to determine the absolute speed of light. The negative result confirmed the relativity principle established by Galilei in the XVII century.
Ether is just a miss-concept that has no place in physics
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