New Tabletop Particle Detector at MIT Can 'See' Individual Electrons

A new tabletop detector has the ability to spot single electrons. Physicists have developed a new particle detector that can identify individual electrons in a radiactive gas.

As the gas decays and gives off electrons, the detector uses a magnet to trap them in a magnetic bottle. A radio antenna then picks up very weak signals emitted by the electrons, which can be used to map the electrons' precise activity over several milliseconds.

"We can literally image the frequency of the electron, and we see this electron suddenly pop into our radio antenna," said Joe Formaggio, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Over time, the frequency changes, and actually chirps up. So these electrons are chirping in radio waves."

Neutrinos are among the more mysterious elementary particles in the universe. In fact, billions of them pass through every cell of our bodies each second. However, these ghostly particles are also incredibly difficult to detect since they don't appear to interact with ordinary matter.

"We have [the mass] cornered, but haven't measured it yet," said Formaggio. "The name of the game is to measure the energy of an electron-that's your signature that tells you about the neutrino."

When a radioactive atom such as tritium decays, it turns into an isotope of helium and also releases an electron and a neutrino. The energy of all particles released add up to the original energy of the parent neutron. Measuring the energy of the electron can therefore can illuminate the energy of the neutrino.

Over the course of five years, the researchers created an accurate detector. Once they turned it on, they were able to record individual electrons within the first 100 milliseconds of the experiment.

The findings could be huge for the future of particle physics. So far, the precision of the measurements in krypton gas has encouraged the researchers to move onto tritium. This goal maybe attainable in the next year or two, and could pave the way toward measuring the mass of the neutrino.

The findings are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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