Chapter 252 Sterile Neutrinos

On the tenth day after New Year's Day in 2019, NTU's 18-year annual outstanding person selection event also began.

Taking time out in advance, Xu Chuan, dressed in formal attire, returned to his alma mater to participate in this important event for the university.

In fact, most colleges and universities have awards ceremonies like Person of the Year.

Those who can win awards at this kind of award ceremony are either top academics, or students who started their own business in school or have made certain achievements.

For students, this award is actually very good and has high gold content. At least, this certificate can bring you a lot of improvement when you find a job after graduation, and many companies recognize it.

He also won this award when he was a freshman. The bonus was 15,000 yuan. Although it was not much, for a student, the money was pretty good.

Whether it is used as living expenses or to do something you like, it is enough.

In addition to the bonus, what is more important is the honor behind the bonus.

You must know that the annual outstanding person selection event covers three groups: 'college students + graduate students + doctoral students'.

Considering the size of NTU, there are almost 40,000 students in the main school and its branches. The significance of standing out among these 40,000 students is far beyond what the bonus can describe.

Just like the Fields Medal, although its prize money is only 15,000 Canadian dollars, the meaning behind this medal cannot be compared to 150 million Canadian dollars.

Like last year, this year NTU has selected ten people of the year.

After arriving at the school, Xu Chuan first said hello to his tutor Chen Zhengping, Professor Zhou Hai of the School of Mathematics and other acquaintances, and chatted for a while outside the auditorium. Then, he was received by the staff and went to the podium to take his seat at the award-giving guest seat.

When Xu Chuan appeared on the podium, there was a commotion in the auditorium.

None of the students who came to attend the award ceremony expected that this legendary god would appear here.

There were rustling sounds in the auditorium, and some students even raised their mobile phones to take pictures.

Regarding this scene, the college leaders and professors at the awards table all smiled.

This one is still popular.

For NTU to produce such a top scholar is not only an honor for the school, but also a blessing for NTU.

At ten o'clock in the morning, the selection of outstanding figures in 2018 officially began.

Looking at these young faces, Xu Chuan sighed inwardly.

Once upon a time, he was among this group of people, and now, he is standing on the stage to give them awards.

I have to say that time flies by so fast, four or five years have passed in the blink of an eye.

The first person to take the stage to receive the award was a graduate student from the Department of Physics.

As one of NTU's top majors, the achievements of this graduate student named 'Pan Xinghai' are outstanding even among a group of top academics.

He has participated as a main member in many scientific research projects at the national level, senior officials and enterprises and institutions commissioned projects.

During his university + postgraduate period, he published a total of six SCI papers in well-known international journals such as Physical Review X and Physical Review B.

Among them, three SCI Area 1 journal papers were included as the first author, and one SCI Area 1 journal article (authored by the tutor) was included as the second author. The total impact factor of the included papers exceeded 30 points.

Such achievements, when applied to a graduate student, can be said to be the best among the best students~the most evil one.

But for such a monster, when he was called to the stage by the host, his face was full of excitement.

"Congratulations, classmate Pan."

On the podium, Xu Chuan, who was invited to present the award, took the certificate and medal from the hands of the etiquette staff with a smile and handed them to the graduate student wearing thick black-rimmed glasses in front of him.

"Sichuan God!"

Taking the award certificate with slightly trembling hands, the top student in the physics department held Xu Chuan's hand with both hands with excitement on his face.

Xu Chuan coughed in embarrassment and said, "Forget it about the God of Sichuan. It sounds awkward. I'm a professor at the school. Just call me Professor Xu."

Pan Xinghai nodded excitedly and said quickly: "Okay, Professor Chuan."

The corner of Xu Chuan's mouth moved. The God of Chuan was gone. What the hell is this Professor Chuan? Why not call him Professor Xu or Professor?

But he didn't say anything, smiled and patted this classmate Pan's arm.

Speaking of which, this classmate Pan is a bit older than him. He seems to be in his mid-twenties this year.

"Professor Chuan, can you please sign your autograph for me?" Pan Xinghai asked with excitement and caution, just like a fanatical fan seeing his idol.

Xu Chuan nodded with a smile, fumbled around, and found that he didn't bring a pen and asked, "Of course, but did you bring a pen and paper?"

Hearing this, Pan Xinghai was stunned for a moment, then quickly groped around on his body, and shook his head in frustration: "No."

He didn't expect that his idol would appear at today's award ceremony, so he didn't bring pen and paper with him.

Although there was it in the schoolbag under the stage, it was too late to go down and get it.

Just as he was regretting missing out on signing this time, the etiquette staff on the side walked up silently, handed Xu Chuan a pen and a notebook, and said softly:

"Professor Xu, just sign this. This book can be given to the winners. We have prepared one for everyone here."

Seeing this, Pan Xinghai was stunned for a moment, and his eyes brightened instantly.

Nanjing University is worthy of being his alma mater, and he thought of this!

Awesome!

On the other side, Xu Chuan was also stunned for a moment, but then he smiled and took the pen and paper from the other party, turned to the first page, and wrote on it:

"I hope that in your future journey, your eyes will have the stars and the sea, your chest will have thousands of hills and valleys, and your heart will have flowers and brocade - Xu Chuan."

After writing a sentence on the notebook, Xu Chuan smiled and handed the notebook in his hand to the winner in front of him.

"Thank you, thank you professor!" Pan Xinghai excitedly shook Xu Chuan's hand again. It was obvious that the words on it were written for him alone!

From today on, this sentence is exclusive to him! His motto!

Xu Chuan smiled, pulled out his hand without leaving a trace, and said with a smile: "Come on."

"I will." Pan Xinghai nodded excitedly, and after hesitating for a while, he continued: "Then, that, Professor Chuan, are you still accepting doctoral students?"

Xu Chuan smiled and said: "I'm afraid not for the time being. I have a lot of things on my hands recently and don't have time to take students."

Hearing this, Pan Xinghai's eyes suddenly flashed with disappointment. This was probably a tactful refusal, but he was not discouraged, and then asked: "Then, then Professor Chuan, can I have a prestige friend or contact information?"

Xu Chuan: "."

In the end, Xu Chuan still gave his prestige to this little fanboy. It is true that he will not accept students in the near future.

Not to mention new students, he has not taken care of the two students brought from Princeton recently. I don't know how they are doing. I still have to find an opportunity to evaluate them.

The second person to go on stage to receive the award was a doctoral student in the Department of Astronomy.

As another trump card major, the Department of Astronomy of Nanjing University is quite impressive. No one would object to saying that it is the best among domestic universities.

This doctoral student has a very impressive resume. He led the team to win the gold medal in the CAIC competition co-organized by the Astronomical Society of China and the Astronomy Committee of the Higher Education Institutions of Education. He also has one SCI Zone II paper and three SCI Zone III papers.

You should know that it is difficult to write a water paper in the astronomy field, especially in the current situation where large-scale astronomical facilities are generally lacking in China. It can be said that it is not easy for this student to still achieve such results.

What surprised Xu Chuan even more was that the winner's mathematics was quite good.

Among his three SCI Zone III papers, two of them are related to mathematics, and one is related to the extended application of the Xu-Weyl-Berry theorem for which he won the Nobel Prize.

It has to be said that as his alma mater, Nanjing University has done a good job in following the latest cutting-edge scientific theories.

The subject of computational astronomy was opened two years ago. Although it is currently only included in the minor of astronomy, it is already very good compared to other schools in China that have not made any progress.

Like Pan, Zhou was also very excited when he saw him. He came up and shook his hand and said shockingly: "I won't wash my hands for a week after this handshake!"

Xu Chuan: "."

Staff member on the side: "."

Fortunately, this student didn't have a microphone, otherwise he would have lost the priority right to choose a spouse in front of thousands of people in the auditorium.

According to the previous process, Xu Chuan took the paper and pen from the etiquette staff, wrote words of encouragement on the first page, and then gave it to the winner.

In the process of asking for signatures, writing signatures, and awarding awards, this year's annual outstanding person selection activity soon came to an end.

It must be said that as a top domestic school, Nanjing University still has a lot of talents.

The ten winners all have very impressive resumes. Xu Chuan also wished them a bright future in his notebook and greater achievements in the academic path.

At the invitation of the school leaders, they had lunch together at noon. What surprised him was that he saw a familiar figure in the hotel.

"Long time no see, Senior Brother Lin Feng. How have you been recently?" In the restaurant of Jinling Hotel, Xu Chuan smiled and greeted Lin Feng.

The last time they parted in Princeton, Senior Brother Lin and his girlfriend chose to return to China, and they had not seen each other for more than a year.

"Long time no see, Junior Brother Chuan!"

Seeing Xu Chuan, Lin Feng came up and gave him a warm hug: "Thanks to you, I'm doing pretty well at CERN."

"It's just that when we chat there, everyone's attention is often on you. For example, when introducing me, they basically mention 'This is Professor Xu Chuan's senior from the same school.'"

"You don't know, you are really popular at CERN now. Many people are studying the calculation method you came up with before. Including me, I took a look at it, but unfortunately I'm not good at math and I can't understand it."

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "Speaking of CERN, I haven't been there for a while. It's really a nostalgic time."

Lin Feng smiled and said, "Currently we are also a member country of CERN, you can go anytime."

Xu Chuan shook his head, skipped the topic and asked, "I'm afraid I don't have time to go there for the time being. What is CERN studying recently?"

He still knows the research of CERN in 2018, but after he suddenly intervened and changed some things in the past two years, he didn't know if there were any changes in the arrangements there.

Lin Feng shook his head and said, "It's still the same. ATLAS and CMS spend most of their time studying Higgs bosons, and LHCb is looking for quarks."

"As for ALICE, I heard that they did a high-energy collision experiment some time ago to simulate the original universe after the Big Bang and analyze the properties of quark-gluon plasma."

"But it seems that their luck is not very good. No discoveries have been made so far."

Hearing this, Xu Chuan's heart moved and asked, "Does China participate in ALICE's experiments?"

If it weren't for Lin Feng, he almost forgot one thing.

18 was the year when he became famous in the physics world in his previous life. The reason was at CERN, because he found traces of the existence of inert neutrinos.

Neutrinos, also known as neutrinos, are a type of lepton and one of the most basic particles in nature.

It is small, uncharged, and can freely pass through the earth. It has a spin of 1/2 and a very light mass, some of which are less than one millionth of an electron. It moves at a speed close to the speed of light and interacts very weakly with other substances. It is known as the "invisible man" in the universe.

It took more than 20 years for the physics community to predict its existence and discover it.

On November 23, 2013, scientists used a particle detector buried under the Antarctic ice to capture high-energy neutrinos from outside the solar system for the first time.

To date, the physics community has confirmed that there are three different types of neutrinos discovered: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos, and tau neutrinos.

However, in 1995, the LSND experiment in the United States proposed the "possible" existence of a fourth type of neutrino - sterile neutrinos.

Sterile neutrinos are another state of neutrinos, which involves some relationships between particles.

Ordinary neutrinos are also called active neutrinos, and their concept was first proposed by Austrian theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli.

They are almost everywhere and can be produced in the Big Bang, galactic activity, supernova explosions, the center of the sun and the interior of the earth, as well as nuclear reactors and particle accelerators.

Inert neutrinos are hypothetical particles for which there is no reliable experimental evidence. They were first proposed by Italian theoretical physicist Bruno Pontikov around 1968.

They refer to neutrinos that do not participate in the standard weak interaction process, so they are usually understood as new particles that go beyond the three-generation lepton framework of the standard model.

Compared with ordinary active neutrinos, the discovery of inert neutrinos is also related to another kind of cosmic matter-dark matter!

Because theoretically, it does not participate in any interaction except gravity and is a candidate for warm dark matter.

If the existence of inert neutrinos can be found, it can prove the existence of dark matter in the universe.

This is of great significance to the physics community.