Neutrino detector detects a new type of "ghost particle" emanating from the Sun

A giant underground neutrino detector called Borexino, headquartered in Italy, has detected an entirely new type of neutrino emanating from the sun. The discovered neutrinos confirmed the 90-year-old hypothesis.

Elusive neutrinos and the old theory

So, neutrinos are ultra-light particles that are formed in the course of nuclear reactions (conversion of hydrogen to helium) and most of the previously discovered particles on Earth were produced by our you the Sun.

But back in 1930, a theory was put forward according to which the Sun should produce neutrinos a completely different type in the course of a reaction in which oxygen, nitrogen and carbon participate - these are neutrinos of the type CNO.

And only now the Borexino detector was able to confirm the theoretical assumption.

Why is this discovery important?

Of course, the CNO type of reaction makes up an insignificant part of the solar energy, but, according to assumptions, in in much more massive stars, it is this reaction that is the main propeller of thermonuclear synthesis.

It is the experimental detection of CNO neutrinos that makes it possible to assemble the puzzle of the solar fusion cycle into a single picture.

According to the chief researcher at Borexino F. Kalaprisa, the actual detection of a new type of neutrino that is produced by our sun, is only one percent of the total. This suggests that scientists correctly understand how stars in general work.

How a new type of neutrino was discovered

Finding a new type of neutrino turned out to be a rather difficult task. And all because even an ordinary type of neutrino, which literally bombards every square centimeter about 65 billion "projectiles" every second, they rarely interact with substance.

And the bulk simply permeates through us and our planet.

It is for the registration of such rare collisions of neutrinos with atoms of matter that special detectors were created, in which huge volumes of detector liquid or gas are used.

So in the course of a collision of neutrinos with atoms, a flash of light occurs, which is recorded by specially tuned detectors.

But as it turned out, CNO-type neutrino signals are even more difficult to detect. After all, CNO-type signatures strongly resemble the background signatures emitted by the detector itself.

In order to solve this problem, years were spent, during which engineers adjusted the temperature of the installation to maximum deceleration of the liquid inside the detector and focusing on signals that came from the very center of the detector, and not from its edges.

And only in February 2020, the signal was finally recorded. Since that time, scientists have further increased the sensitivity of the central part of the detector, which will make it possible to record such a rare interaction much more often.

And this work is intended, first of all, to improve the understanding of the processes taking place in stars and to understand how "metallic" stars, including our Sun, are.

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