Sorry, this neutrino laser won't work, physicists say
Neutrinos are pervasive yet intangible particles that permeate the universe, streaming through whole planets, stars and our bodies by the trillions each second. The elementary particles are often described as "ghostly" for their near-zero mass and elusive nature, as they have very little interaction with normal matter.
MIT physicists have debunked the concept of a neutrino laser, stating that it is physically and fundamentally impossible. The proposal, which suggested that a concentrated beam of neutrinos could be produced by cooling a cloud of radioactive atoms to nanokelvin temperatures, was based on the idea of superradiance, a quantum amplifying effect observed for photons.
However, the researchers found that the neutrino laser concept is flawed due to recoil (kinetic energy created by the reaction) and the fundamental fermionic nature of neutrinos. The MIT team's two-part analysis, published in Physical Review Letters, effectively killed the proposal, leaving no room for further speculation or context from their own knowledge.
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