Has there been experimental evidence for neutrinos being affected by gravity?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers on whether there is experimental or observational evidence for neutrinos being affected by gravity, including potential methods such as gravitational lensing and the detection of cosmic neutrino backgrounds.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • One participant inquires about experimental evidence for neutrinos being affected by gravity, noting that existing papers on lensing do not present results outside of error margins.
  • Another participant suggests that the redshifted cosmic neutrino background might be relevant to the discussion.
  • A different participant expresses surprise at the direct measurement of cosmic background radiation and requests a link to supporting literature.
  • One contributor argues that determining gravitational effects on neutrinos is currently impossible without a neutrino imager, which they claim does not exist, while mentioning the complexities of existing neutrino detection methods.
  • Another participant counters that neutrino imagers do exist, referencing a paper about imaging the moon using the IceCube neutrino detector, although they acknowledge it does not directly address the original question.
  • A later reply expresses gratitude for the information about the IceCube neutrino telescope.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the existence and capabilities of neutrino imagers, as well as the relevance of cosmic neutrino backgrounds to the question of gravitational effects on neutrinos. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the experimental evidence for neutrinos being affected by gravity.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the current lack of a neutrino imager capable of determining gravitational effects and the dependence on the definitions of what constitutes evidence in this context.

Xilor
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Hello, I was wondering if there was any experimental or observational evidence for neutrinos being affected by gravity. Be it through detected lensing or other means. All I could find were some papers on lensing none of which seemed to have actual results out of the error margin.
 
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Does the redshifted cosmic neutrino background count?
 
I wasn't even aware that a cosmic background radiation was measured directly. Do you happen to have a link to a paper on it?
 
Greetings:

I do not think that it is possible to determine such effects on neutrinos without a neutrino imager (pardon the spelling) and such a device does not currently exist. It is possible to detect individual neutrinos and their general direction using various detectors depending on the neutrino's resonant state, but you can not as yet form an image from neutrinos to determine gravitational effects on such neutrinos. Current detectors are vast to complicated depending on the resonant state. Various media include highly purified water, carbon tetrachloride, and germanium. Electron neutrinos are detected by water detectors, the largest type. I do not know if muon neutrinos or tau neutrinos are detected with the germanium type but the crystals of the detector have to be melted down for analysis. One is highly unlikely to get an image that way. And to get a useful image using neutrinos it is necessary to have some way of focusing them to form an image. Without some kind of neutrino imager or camera it will be very very difficult to determine such effects
 
Not quite true that neutrino imagers do not exist. Look at this paper, where they were able to image the moon using the IceCube neutrino detector at the South Pole. This doesn't answer the OPs question, but it is cool:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.2969
 
Greetings Phyzguy:

I did not know of the Ice Cube neutrino telescope! Thanks for the 'heads up'!
 

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