Neutrino communication

[Lance R. Casey]

Superluminal or not, neutrinos can be used to send messages straight through solid matter. Drawback: the equipment is huge.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120314143146.htm

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I wonder what permits I need to build a particle accelerator in my back yard... 

[Seze Mune]

I wonder what permits I need to build a particle accelerator in my back yard... 

[Human No More]

If you actually could, probably just planning permission (although good luck explaining to them what a particle accelerator is ); they aren't dangerous .

[Niri Te]

 Just build it in West Texas, what's a building permit?
Niri Te

[Seze Mune]

Just build it in West Texas, what's a building permit?
Niri Te

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I have a 345 kV power line in my back yard for power. I can probably get the utility to hook me up if I promise to not make the local line voltage sag more then 2 percent or so.....

If your particle accelerator accelerates hadrons or ions, the machine does slowly become radioactive. Good machine design will minimize this effect. Some parts, like the beam collimators and scrapers can become quite radioactive during normal operation. So can whatever you use as a beam target.

BTW, they have beams back in the Large Hadron Collider. From what I am seeing during calibration tests, they plan to 'hit the ground running' this year, and the have increased the beam energy from 3.5 to 4 Gev per beam!

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

In all seriousness, though, I wonder how one could shrink down particle accelerators enough so that they can become useful neutrino-creators for communication. For example, could the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch–Meeks_fusor (which I do actually plan on building someday, and ma Eylan, you might enjoy building one as well!) be tweaked or fueled differently so to increase neutrino output? Then you'd have a nice, compact source of neutrinos.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I never thought of that. A 'keyable' neutrino source! If neutrios could be detected at a high enough rate, that would actually work. One interesting problem with this kind of fusir is the neutrons (and neutrnos) are emitted in all directions. The neutrons can be eliminated by shielding (and they slowly make the shielding radioactive!), but the neutrinos go sailing right on through.  So, you couldn't have too many of these operating at once, or your communication would be very confused.

And yes, I have given thought to building one. We have a fusor expert right here in Reno, and for a while, he was attending school (and maybe bombarding me with neutrons!) right over my head! (See the new thread on the Farnsworth Fusor.)