Clues to origins of Universe

BBC News World Edition Science/Nature

January 30, 2003

A South Pole telescope promises new insights into violent events at the heart of the Universe.

Scientists say it can trail particles given off by colliding black holes, exploded stars and the cores of distant galaxies.

These energetic events emit invisible, uncharged, nearly mass-less, sub-atomic particles, called high-energy neutrinos.

The Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (Amanda) telescope can track the elusive particles back to their source, scientists have confirmed.

It is exciting news for astrophysicists, who now have a new tool for studying the orgins of black holes, stars and other objects in the Universe.

Steven Barwick, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine, US, said; "We now have a powerful new tool to scan the heavens.

"This marks a significant breakthrough in the field of high-energy neutrino astronomy.

"Amanda does what it is designed to do. Of all the high-energy particles emitted from the violent, energetic events in the Universe, only neutrinos can directly provide information on these activities."

The telescope is unusual in that it is buried underneath the Antarctic ice, pointing into the ground.

High-energy neutrinos from the distant Universe pass straight through the Earth and out the other side while other forms of radiation are filtered out.

An international team of physicists and astronomers used the telescope to explore an uncharted region of sky.

They calculated that it was powerful enough to measure the direction of neutrinos within 3.5 degrees.

This is accurate enough to reveal sources of high-energy neutrinos in the distant Universe.

The research underlines the growing connections between particle physics and astronomy, said Prof Ken Peach of the CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, UK.

"Neutrinos have very special properties that make them able to see directly into regions that are otherwise only accessible indirectly," he told BBC News Online, "shedding what might be called 'neutrino light' on some of the most challenging astrophysical objects".

The research is to be published in February's Astrophysical Journal.