UWRF Physics Professor Suruj Seunarine described the scientific research using the unique characteristics available in the Antarctic to increase the understanding of neutrinos, one of the many subatomic particles that don’t comprise atoms.
The nature of neutrinos is such that they don’t make their presence known; they have very little mass, don’t carry an electrical charge, and pass through solid objects – like the Earth! Trillions of neutrinos pass through a 1 cm square area. Our Sun produces a large number of neutrinos. The Ice Cube project to study them has been going on for about 15 years.
The talk started with a bit of history: Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912, and neutrinos are one component of cosmic rays. Rarely, a neutrino can impact an atom of lead and give off light. Because of the rare nature of the light emission, one way to observe the light is to create a gigantic detector. Ice under South Pole is suitable as a detector because the ice is transparent but light from the surface doesn’t penetrate depth. To create the detector, 86 holes were drilled more than 2 km into the ice and placed light sensors have been placed in the holes.
After many events, one neutrino even coincided with other radiation detected elsewhere, determined by coordination among many astronomical observatories to be emissions from an object near the constellation Orion.
Suruj and UWRF students are also working on a neutron monitor at the South Pole. This is a newer and much smaller-scale experiment.
About the Speaker
Dr. Seunarine's research interests are in the fields of neutrino astrophysics and theoretical particle physics. He works on IceCube with a large international collaboration that has built and operates a neutrino telescope at the South Pole, and he conducts research using the neutron monitors at the South Pole. Dr. Seunarine has been at UWRF for 10 years.
He is the Director of UWRF's Research Experience for Undergraduates Site on Neutrino Astrophysics. He has lived in Trinidad and Tobago and Italy, and has worked as a professional physicist and taught in the USA (UWRF), New Zealand (University of Canterbury), and Barbados (University of the West Indies).
Dr. Seunarine’s degrees are a PhD from the University of Kansas, a Graduate Diploma (Theoretical High Energy Physics) from ICTP in Trieste, Italy and a B.S., University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.