Long-sought neutrinos answer burning question about the Sun

After decades of searching, physicists have finally confirmed the existence of low-energy neutrinos that are direct evidence for the first crucial step in the nuclear reaction that makes the Sun shine. While the detection validates well-established stellar fusion theory, future, more sensitive versions of the experiment could look for deviations from the theory that would reveal new physics.

www.nature.com...

It will be interesting what new things this will reveal about physics. This appears to be right up ErosA433's ally so I look forward to his (or her) thoughts on this.

Solar Neutrinos in the Electric Universe | Space News

I think Wal Thornhill gives a really good talk on this subject.

They always try to fit anything they can to try and prove a model that came out of the horse and buggy era. Well, its still the wrong science.

This is pretty awesome, they basically managed to see a excess of events between background regions that are from the pp process. Extremely nice work which basically bags it theoretically and shows the standard solar model from the late John Bahcall was correct.

Even more impressive is the match between observation and theory.

a reply to: Unity_99

EU proponents: "The lack of neutrinos from the sun proves EU theory is correct!"

Neutrinos are detected from the sun

EU proponents: "The neutrinos from the sun proves EU theory to be correct!"

ETA: EU nonsense is not the topic of the thread, I hasten to add

@ErosA433 Agreed! So where do you see the developments of this taking physics?

a reply to: GetHyped

Well the interesting part of all this is the possibility of detecting possible CNO neutrinos. This would give a direct indication to the metallicity of the solar core. That measurement could also give a eye to new none standard interactions in neutrino oscillation physics that only occur in dense material such as the sun.

Observing the PP process is also an important step as not only does it say that yes 99% of the energy is produced by the PP process, which we thought. It also allows us to constrain and test models of neutrino oscillation and interactions at lower energy.

Borexino is a great experiment, and one that many of the people who I currently work with, actually worked on during their early careers, helping to build and operate it. So these people must be extremely happy.

a reply to: ErosA433
Do you agree this may put in doubt our standard measurement of real time, using radioactive decay?

But that assumption was challenged in an unexpected way by a group of researchers from Purdue University who at the time were more interested in random numbers than nuclear decay. (Scientists use long strings of random numbers for a variety of calculations, but they are difficult to produce, since the process used to produce the numbers has an influence on the outcome.)

Ephraim Fischbach, a physics professor at Purdue, was looking into the rate of radioactive decay of several isotopes as a possible source of random numbers generated without any human input. (A lump of radioactive cesium-137, for example, may decay at a steady rate overall, but individual atoms within the lump will decay in an unpredictable, random pattern. Thus the timing of the random ticks of a Geiger counter placed near the cesium might be used to generate random numbers.)

As the researchers pored through published data on specific isotopes, they found disagreement in the measured decay rates – odd for supposed physical constants.

Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.

Was this fluctuation real, or was it merely a glitch in the equipment used to measure the decay, induced by the change of seasons, with the accompanying changes in temperature and humidity?

"Everyone thought it must be due to experimental mistakes, because we're all brought up to believe that decay rates are constant," Sturrock said. news.stanford.edu...

tetra

a reply to: tetra50

So the subject in question has zero bearing on the results presented by this experiment in particular.

However on the subject of your question I can say the following. Everything I have read in regard to the apparent variation of nuclear decay, is tenable, that is, the effect is quite small, and the reported variations are at the 0.1 to 1% level which can easily be due to systematic uncertainties, such as changing temperature in the lab, signal detection thresholds changing within electronics, detector efficiency fluctuations due to humidity changes etc.

The only element that has shown a large variation is Radon 222, however radon is a gas, and having personally a lot of experience trying to control radon and measure radon emanation from material. Even with extremely careful and precise experimental procedures the systematics on that measurement will be large. The problem comes with being able to produce well known and calibrated samples of Radon 222. Firstly it is a gas, and secondly the half life is very short (about 3 days). So measuring changes in decay rates can only be done accurately if you watch the decay of one sample over about 2 to 3 half lives before you start to hit serious statistical issues.

Having personally attempted generating calibrated quantities of radon for the purpose of spike testing, I can tell you it isn't easy and does depend on many many factors. Just changing the humidity of the room by a small amount can change the sampling.


That is my own take on it, and I am backed up by others who have looked into this closely with their own setup and found that the variations can only be due to systematics on the detection technique as opposed to a real effect. It has been studied closely and found to be most likely due to systematics on behalf of the original reported results.