6 ms·

Could we simply use another muon beam as a detector?

• jjk166 5y ago
  No, neutrinos are simply a decay product, and in fact there isn't anything particularly special about a muon beam, neutrinos are a common product of many reactions, muons are just convenient because they don't cost much energy to produce and form into a beam, and they decay quickly while still living long enough to be useful. Neutrino detectors work because there is an astronomically small but non-zero chance that a neutrino emit either a Z or W boson. A Z boson can hit a nearby electron, accelerating it, or a W boson can decay into a fast moving electron, either of which can be observed in various ways. There's no way to prompt this behavior, but if you're watching enough matter while enough neutrinos are passing through, eventually you'll see some events. The number of events are proportional to how many neutrinos are passing through, so if you see a large number of events in a short period of time, you know something has sent a pulse of neutrinos. That said, you could most certainly have a muon beam neutrino detector located at the same site as a neutrino detector, allowing you to both send and receive messages. Because the neutrino beam is highly directional, it won't interfere with the detector.