Recently, scientists at the Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy utilized a specialized container, called a cryostat, to cool one cubic meter of copper to temperatures in very close proximity to absolute zero. In order to cool the 400Kg (880-lb.) cube to 6 millikelvins (six-thousandths of a degree above absolute zero), the cryostat was equipped with a complex system of pressurized gas-filled tubes called a dilution refrigerator.
Plans for the future use of the cryostat as a particle detector are currently under way. This experiment is designated as the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) will take place in the INFN Gran Sasso underground lab which is currently under construction. The cryostat will be repurposed with hundreds of crystals specifically designed to detect the radiation and temperature changes of particles called neutrinos. Researchers hope that the CUORE experiment will allow them to study these subatomic particles like never before.
Neutrinos are at the center stage of antimatter studies because it is possible for these particles to go through neutrinoless double-beta decay. During this process, antineutrinos are expected to decay into regular neutrinos, proving these particles act as their own antiparticles. These observations could help explain why there is more matter than antimatter in our universe.
Submitted by Nathan Throne
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