4 ms·

The probable boring answer, mentioned near the end, is that at a detection rate of 500 events per 15 years of experiment runtime, statistical power comes slowly

The probable boring answer, mentioned near the end, is that at a detection rate of 500 events per 15 years of experiment runtime, statistical power comes slowly.

ncmncm 5y ago
But, as noted, that already happened. Six sigma is six sigma. To demand better than that amounts to special pleading. It looks like people just wish this would go away, like the failure of the galactic rotation curves. What is strange is that this might be a place to park dark matter, catnip nowadays. Usually when this sort of thing happens in cosmology, astrophysics, or particle physics, it is because most physicists hate working with the mathematics required, and hope somebody else will tell them they were right to ignore it.
- contravariant 5y ago
  I suppose we should be a bit careful about limits like that when an experiment is run continuously, but 6 sigma is a pretty high bar to clear.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  we have a confirmed discrepancy at six sigma, sure. wanna bet how long it'll take to figure out _how_, at such a low detection rate? We're at "we've confirmed there's a bug", not "here's the repro, traceback, and by the way if you fix these four lines it'll work again".
  - Iolaum 5y ago
    Coming up with potential "tracebacks" is how theoretical physicists make papers and get citations. And then you use them to design a proper experiment that will shed light to other aspects of this anomaly. But for some reason this process ain't starting.
    - hprotagonist 5y ago
      > But for some reason this process ain't starting. or, 2.5 years, one of which was a global pandemic, is not enough time to design, begin, and publicize a series of experiments that take a few decades to produce data in quantity to continue investigating new physics.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Again: the next step is not more experiments. The experiments are done, and confirmed the discrepancy. The next step is theorizing, which can be done in isolation, relatively unaffected by pandemic. That is what is now neglected. After hypotheses have been shown to be plausible, i.e. account for the result correctly, yet consistent with other results, it will be time to design experiments to choose among them. So, no, the silence is not consistent with normal process AIUI.
        zzt123 5y ago
        There are theories. Such as the discrepancy being due to sterile neutrinos (also explaining dark matter). Confirming or rejecting through data is currently underway, is not at six sigma, and won’t be for years due to rareness and difficulty of detecting events. So it isn’t being talked about since we are in the lurch.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        We have sketches of hypotheses. What we lack are detailed predictions; and refereed papers to exposite them, and to compete. Absent such predictions, it doesn't much matter how much more data you collect.
        techdragon 5y ago
        Not a professional physicist but… Given the absurdly low rate of detection, it feels like a focused experiment designed explicitly to maximise detection is warranted. Difficulty of neutrino experiments aside, this is physics! If we want more detection events we just need to make more particles and/or build a bigger detection apparatus. I don’t necessarily think there’s much benefit to a “larger volume” detector in this particular experiment (MiniBooNE) due to beam width and spreading rate, but I don’t see how having one or two more identical detectors lined up along the generated neutrino‘s path wouldn’t help. Building a more “powerful” neutrino production system, even as simply as just having an accelerator with a higher particle flux would likely increase this factor. If people are arguing over possible issues in the experiment design (which there do appear to be concerns here, but grain of salt as IANAP) then dialling the experiment parameters up will should make any experiment specific effects more obvious as there will now be two sets of data points that can be correlated by the experiment parameters to fill out such effects.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

The probable boring answer, mentioned near the end, is that at a detection rate of 500 events per 15 years of experiment runtime, statistical power comes slowly.

ncmncm 5y ago

But, as noted, that already happened. Six sigma is six sigma. To demand better than that amounts to special pleading. It looks like people just wish this would go away, like the failure of the galactic rotation curves. What is strange is that this might be a place to park dark matter, catnip nowadays. Usually when this sort of thing happens in cosmology, astrophysics, or particle physics, it is because most physicists hate working with the mathematics required, and hope somebody else will tell them they were right to ignore it.

contravariant 5y ago
I suppose we should be a bit careful about limits like that when an experiment is run continuously, but 6 sigma is a pretty high bar to clear.
hprotagonist 5y ago
we have a confirmed discrepancy at six sigma, sure. wanna bet how long it'll take to figure out _how_, at such a low detection rate? We're at "we've confirmed there's a bug", not "here's the repro, traceback, and by the way if you fix these four lines it'll work again".
- Iolaum 5y ago
  Coming up with potential "tracebacks" is how theoretical physicists make papers and get citations. And then you use them to design a proper experiment that will shed light to other aspects of this anomaly. But for some reason this process ain't starting.
  - hprotagonist 5y ago
    > But for some reason this process ain't starting. or, 2.5 years, one of which was a global pandemic, is not enough time to design, begin, and publicize a series of experiments that take a few decades to produce data in quantity to continue investigating new physics.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Again: the next step is not more experiments. The experiments are done, and confirmed the discrepancy. The next step is theorizing, which can be done in isolation, relatively unaffected by pandemic. That is what is now neglected. After hypotheses have been shown to be plausible, i.e. account for the result correctly, yet consistent with other results, it will be time to design experiments to choose among them. So, no, the silence is not consistent with normal process AIUI.
      - zzt123 5y ago
        There are theories. Such as the discrepancy being due to sterile neutrinos (also explaining dark matter). Confirming or rejecting through data is currently underway, is not at six sigma, and won’t be for years due to rareness and difficulty of detecting events. So it isn’t being talked about since we are in the lurch.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        We have sketches of hypotheses. What we lack are detailed predictions; and refereed papers to exposite them, and to compete. Absent such predictions, it doesn't much matter how much more data you collect.
      - techdragon 5y ago
        Not a professional physicist but… Given the absurdly low rate of detection, it feels like a focused experiment designed explicitly to maximise detection is warranted. Difficulty of neutrino experiments aside, this is physics! If we want more detection events we just need to make more particles and/or build a bigger detection apparatus. I don’t necessarily think there’s much benefit to a “larger volume” detector in this particular experiment (MiniBooNE) due to beam width and spreading rate, but I don’t see how having one or two more identical detectors lined up along the generated neutrino‘s path wouldn’t help. Building a more “powerful” neutrino production system, even as simply as just having an accelerator with a higher particle flux would likely increase this factor. If people are arguing over possible issues in the experiment design (which there do appear to be concerns here, but grain of salt as IANAP) then dialling the experiment parameters up will should make any experiment specific effects more obvious as there will now be two sets of data points that can be correlated by the experiment parameters to fill out such effects.
deleted 5y ago
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