The sun
produces electron neutrinos, which perhaps are not disappearing, but transforming into other types of neutrinos that escape detection, for example muon or tau neutrinos.
They know that the fusion processes at its heart
produce electron neutrinos — uncharged relatives of the electron, and one of the three known types of neutrino.
The sun's core should
produce electron neutrinos in a range of energies, but detectors see fewer high - energy ones than predicted.
The sun was thought to
produce electron neutrinos only, and if these particles were somehow morphing into the other two flavours as they travelled through space, it could explain the anomaly.
Not exact matches
These include atomic constituents such as
electrons, protons, and neutrons (protons and neutrons are actually composite particles, made up of quarks), particles
produced by radiative and scattering processes, such as photons,
neutrinos, and muons, as well as a wide range of exotic particles.
The liquid was chosen principally because it contains large numbers of protons, with which
electron neutrinos would occasionally interact to
produce a neutron and a positron.
These particles include atomic constituents such as
electrons, protons, and neutrons (protons and neutrons are actually composite particles, made up of quarks), as well as other particles such as photons and
neutrinos which are
produced copiously in the sun.
The
electron carries away most of the
neutrino's energy and zooms away,
producing a detectable flash of light.
In the process, positive
electrons (positrons) and
neutrinos (n) are also
produced along with about 25 million electronvolts (MeV) of thermal energy for every four protons burned; one electronvolt is the energy an
electron acquires by passing through a potential of one volt.
On the very, very rare occasion that a
neutrino interacts with another particle, if the reaction appears to
produce an
electron, then the
neutrino was an
electron flavor in its final moments; if it
produces a muon, the
neutrino was muon - flavored.
The three
neutrino types appear to be distinct: For instance, when muon -
neutrinos interact with a target, they will always
produce muons, and never taus or
electrons.
In 1998, physicists found that some muon and
electron neutrinos, which had been
produced in the atmosphere and sun, had disappeared en route to the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan, which can not detect tau
neutrinos.
To measure the number of
electron -
neutrinos reaching Earth, the SNO team monitored miniscule flashes of light
produced when the particles interact with molecules of heavy waterin which deuterium atoms replace the hydrogen atoms.
Under the extreme conditions that exist during the merger he says, pairs of
neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts will interact to
produce electrons and positrons, which in turn will annihilate one another to make gamma rays.
Scientists have long suspected that these elementary particles, which are
produced by the decay of radioactive elements, have a unique trait — they can change, or «oscillate,» between their three known types, or «flavors» — the
electron neutrino, the muon
neutrino and the tau
neutrino.
These particles, which are
produced by the decay of radioactive elements, have a unique trait — they can change, or «oscillate,» between their three known types, or «flavors» — the
electron neutrino, the muon
neutrino and the tau
neutrino.