How do neutrinos with "fuzzy" quantum mass solve the solar neutrino problem?
Monday, October 6, 2014 - 07:01
in Physics & Chemistry
Neutrinos are perhaps the most enigmatic particles in the universe. They were first discovered in the 1950s as a product of radioactive decay, but they are also produced in nuclear fusion reactions. As a result, copious amounts of neutrinos are produced in the Sun through the pp-chain and CNO nuclear fusion processes in the core of our star. This makes the Sun a perfect candidate for doing neutrino astronomy. But when we first starting observing solar neutrinos in the 1960s, revealed mystery known as the solar neutrino problem. The solution to this problem wasn't proven until the late 1990s, and it demonstrated that neutrinos are far more strange than we had imagined.