At Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), according to the project, the world's most accurate scale has started its measurements. After 15 years of construction, the neutrino scale "Katrin" ("Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment") was launched there on Monday. It should help determine the weight of the lightest elementary particles.
The neutrinos, also called ghost particles, are everywhere - several billion of them flow through every finger of a human being every second. Physicists hope to gain insights into the genesis of the universe through their research.
"This is a great day for the universe - because one of its main components is now measured," said the KIT area manager Johannes Blümer at the inauguration ceremony of the 60-million-euro test setup. Around 200 researchers from 20 institutions from seven countries are involved in the project.
DPA
Pressure like on the moon
In the "Katrin" experiment, the decomposition of tritium gives rise to electrons and neutrinos. The construction has immense dimensions: the vacuum tank alone has a diameter of around ten meters and weighs 200 tons. "The pressure in there is as low as on the moon," said KIT researcher Florian Heizmann. After about five years of measurement, the researchers expect the most accurate measurement results.
Determining the weight of the neutrinos is considered important fundamental research. What conclusions are possible, it can only speculate. Heizmann: "When the nuclear fission was discovered, it was also completely unclear what would emerge from it."