neutino and neutron decay

[Jacques]

The half life of free neutron is 15 minutes.

I was wondering if it is possible that the decay of neutron is the result of neutrinos collision. Some neutrino detector use chlorine that transform into argon or gallium that transform to germanium and both reaction imply that a neutron is transformed into a proton.

Neutrinos are all around so there is a chance that a neutron can be hit by a neutrino.

Just a thought. What do you think of it?

[swansont]

The reverse reaction does not give you the same products. A neutron decay gives you a proton, an electron and a neutrino. Charge, baryon number and lepton number are conserved. A neutrino absorption would have to be accompanied by a lepton emission, rather than an antilepton. And the solar fusion reactions involve neutrinos.

 

http://www.tim-thompson.com/fusion.html

 

However, an antineutrino absorption would result in a proton and an emitted electron. This is a possibility if the neutrino is its own antiparticle, and I don't think this has been fully resolved. But I suspect that the stability of a neutron depending on the neutrino flux has serious implications on nuclear stability, and we would have noticed these problems in studying the spectra of other stars.

[Jacques]

A way to test would be to mesure the half-life of neutron beside an intense neutrino or antineutrino source, like a nuclear reactor.

If there is a difference make others mesurements with different neutrini intensity and extrapolate for background neutrino intensity.

I don't know how the half life of neutron is mesured...

[Mr Skeptic]

The reverse reaction does not give you the same products. A neutron decay gives you a proton, an electron and a neutrino. Charge, baryon number and lepton number are conserved. A neutrino absorption would have to be accompanied by a lepton emission, rather than an antilepton. And the solar fusion reactions involve neutrinos.

 

Wouldn't a neutron decay into a proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino (assuming a neutrino isn't its own antiparticle)?

 

http://www.tim-thompson.com/fusion.html

 

However, an antineutrino absorption would result in a proton and an emitted electron. This is a possibility if the neutrino is its own antiparticle, and I don't think this has been fully resolved. But I suspect that the stability of a neutron depending on the neutrino flux has serious implications on nuclear stability, and we would have noticed these problems in studying the spectra of other stars.

 

Would that be distinguishable from a slight error in the core temperature?

[swansont]

Wouldn't a neutron decay into a proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino (assuming a neutrino isn't its own antiparticle)?

 

Whoops. Yes. I edited something and neither finished the edit nor did I proofread (I wrote down the other case of beta decay and the just changed positron to electron) D'oh!

 

Neutrino absorption would indeed give the same reaction as beta decay of the neutron.

 

 

Would that be distinguishable from a slight error in the core temperature?

 

I'm not sure if it would be so subtle. If neutrino absorption caused neutron decays, there could be decays of nominally stable isotopes, which would throw off most of the fusion reaction dynamics. It would also mean that we should probably see differing isotopic ratios in spectra of other stars, the interstellar medium and even planets in our solar system.

[Jacques]

How the half life of neutron is mesured ?

[swansont]

How the half life of neutron is mesured ?

 

Neutron beam or neutron trap. You count the number of protons you get as a result.

 

 

http://physics.nist.gov/Divisions/Div846/Gp3/FunPhys/lifetime.html

 

http://www.ncnr.nist.gov/summerschool/ss09/pdf/Huffman_FP09.pdf

[Jacques]

Thanks very interesting

Would be difficult to move such appartus. May be it would be simplier to move the neutrino source to do the tests.