Neutrino Manesquerade

Because everypony loves a mystery!

Sunny: Okay everypony! I know you’ve all been waiting for me to teach you the moves for the neutrino dance I choreographed for us!

Izzy: What’s a neutrino dance?

Sunny: Seriously? It’s on the group text. I created an amazing dance to show the physics of neutrino oscillations. Just imagine it. All three pony kinds dancing together to illustrate the mixing of the three neutrino flavours at the grand hall of Zephyr Heights Palace.

Misty: I’m sorry Sunny, but, what’s a neutrino?

Sunny: Neutrinos are very mysterious particles. They travel super-fast, and can zip straight through the Earth, as they hardly ever interact with ordinary matter. What’s more, they come in three different flavours: electron, muon, and tau. But we can’t always tell what flavour they are. It’s like they’re wearing masks. This makes them the perfect particle to highlight at the Manesquerade ball! We’ll show how they oscillate.

Pipp: Oscillate?

Sunny: They oscillate from one flavour to another. A neutrino created as a muon neutrino, might show up as an electron neutrino after it has travelled hundred kilometres, and a tau neutrino after another hundred.

Zipp: How does that work?

Sunny: I’m glad you asked. The electron is a canter-skip, the muon, hoof-tap-tail-flick-double-click, and the tau, mane-shake-hoof-it-up-a-twirly-shift. It’s easy.

Pipp: And the oscillating part?

Sunny: Start with the electron (or muon or tau if you prefer) dance, then slowly reduce the amplitude with which you are dancing that move, and build up the magnitude of the muon (or tau or electron) steps. Just follow my lead and keep in sync.

Zipp: Err, what?

Sunny: We’re showing the oscillation between mass and flavour eigenstates. We can illustrate this really cool feature of quantum mechanics. Like all particles, neutrinos move through space as waves, described by wavefunctions, which tell us the probability of seeing one at any point. Although the neutrino is created as an electron, muon, or tau neutrino, it moves through space as mass states: m1, m2, and m3, which each have a different mix of electron, muon, and tau, and each travel at slightly different speeds. So, when we detect a neutrino, the balance of flavours will have shifted, and there is a different probability of seeing it as an electron or muon or tau neutrino. This probability oscillates up and down as we move further from its origin… What are you doing Izzy?

Izzy: I’m oscillating.

Sunny: Not like that. I explained the moves… Wait!.. It’s starting?.. No, we’re not ready!

Izzy: Don’t worry Sunny. We got this!

Somepony give me a muon
Somepony give me a tau
Neutrinos twist about
And oscillate

Hey, hey!

Come on, change your flavour
Particle play

You gotta show me
What’s your state today

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-ahhh

Shake it, shake it, oscillate!

Leptons crossing time and space
Show me your flavour moves
You gotta let your mass state move
Yeah, let it sway

Let it sway!

You gotta show me
Your eigenstate of play

Dance, feel the rhythm
Electron, muon, tau
Dance, feel the rhythm
Switch that flavour state now!

Further reading: Daring Do and the Mysteries of Particle Physics

Comments

[Booster Spice]

At first I got stuck on Pointer Sister, Neutron Dance?

Then I got stuck on Particle Man.

Something about the different speeds makes me ponder given you get the variable phase shift just by different energies, but youd need far smaller energy differences to have phase beat variations that low?

I still keep thinking if neutrinos are oscilating, and Poynting vector is a helix in 3 dimentions, are neutrinos related, and if so, antineutrinos would be circularly polarised opposite?

[Eroraf86]

I love the flavor of neutrino oscillations in the morning. It tastes like . . . linear algebra?

Side note: how can a masquerade even work for ponies if their flanks are uncovered?

[iisaw]

[Pineta]

5744170
It may taste like abstract mathematics, but it's the real world. You just need a megaton detector to show it.

I guess you just apply so much makeup that no pony knows what's real. Or at least that's the pretence. Ball gowns being so out-of-fashion this generation.

[TheJediMasterEd]

And Zipp has a David Bowie mask!

miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1038/1*OnG7I2_kr1yHU2l91aytQg.jpeg

[TheJediMasterEd]

5744170

I actually took a course in linear algebra: it was either that or statistics. I've always regretted my decision because nobody's ever tried to lie to me with an eigenvector.

[horizon]

5744170
Not to mention that one of the attendees is a dragon. Being anonymous in a situation like that is gonna require some sort of magical Clark Kent glasses.

... it's a shame that G5 doesn't have changelings. Probably the best way to have an actual masquerade is to have everyone enter with a changeling duplicate, and then have a small army of changelings mingling with guests throughout the evening, shifting between the various guests so that you're never quite certain whether you're talking to the original or a duplicate.

[hawthornbunny]

Hey that's my Izzy gif! I knew that would come in handy. ^^

5744319

Probably the best way to have an actual masquerade is to have everyone enter with a changeling duplicate, and then have a small army of changelings mingling with guests throughout the evening, shifting between the various guests so that you're never quite certain whether you're talking to the original or a duplicate.

I love this so much

[Pineta]

5744395
Thanks for the gif. You can tag it "Neutrino Oscillation Demo"