Mounting evidence suggests neutrinos are key to why antimatter is rare
Tiny subatomic particles called neutrinos could help answer a really big question: why anything exists at all. A new result reaffirms earlier hints that neutrinos behave differently than their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos, physicists with the neutrino experiment T2K report. If confirmed, the particles’ divergence could help reveal how the universe avoided becoming an empty wasteland. The cosmos is filled with matter. Its counterpart, antimatter, is much less common. But in the newborn cosmos, both existed in equal measure. Since matter and antimatter particles annihilate each other when they get together, that should have left the cosmos filled with nothing but energy. For the universe to have formed as we know it, something must have tipped the balance toward matter. The new result, if reinforced by future measurements, would support a long-held hunch that neutrinos are key to explaining how matter got the upper hand. “This is definitely very exciting and motivating,” says neutrino physicist Georgia Karagiorgi of Columbia University, who was not involved with the study....