Science Reference

Neutrino

The neutrino is an elementary particle.

It has half-integer spin and is therefore a fermion.

All neutrinos observed to date have left-handed chirality.

Although they had been considered massless for many years, recent experiments have shown their mass to be non-zero.

Because it is an electrically neutral lepton, the neutrino interacts neither by way of the strong nor the electromagnetic force, but only through the weak force and gravity.

Because the cross section in weak nuclear interactions is very small, neutrinos can pass through matter almost unhindered.

For typical neutrinos produced in the sun (with energies of a few MeV), it would take approximately one light year of lead to block half of them.

Detection of neutrinos is therefore challenging, requiring large detection volumes or high intensity artificial neutrino beams.

There are three known types (flavors) of neutrinos: electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino, named after their partner leptons in the Standard Model..

For more information about the topic Neutrino, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Note: This page refers to an article that is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the article Neutrino at Wikipedia.org. See the Wikipedia copyright page for more details.

Search ScienceDaily

Number of stories in archives: 44,032

Find with keyword(s):
 
Enter a keyword or phrase to search ScienceDaily's archives for related news topics,
the latest news stories, reference articles, science videos, images, and books.
 

Science Video News


Physics Of Sailing

Physicists know the secrets of sailing that many novice sailors do not. A boat does not go fastest when the wind blows from directly behind it, but. ...  > full story

Breaking News

... from NewsDaily.com

In Other News ...

Copyright Reuters 2008. See Restrictions.

Free Subscriptions

... from ScienceDaily

Get the latest science news with our free email newsletters, updated daily and weekly. Or view hourly updated newsfeeds in your RSS reader:

Feedback

... we want to hear from you!

Tell us what you think of the new ScienceDaily -- we welcome both positive and negative comments. Have any problems using the site? Questions?
Post this page to your favorite social bookmarking site:
close
Include this item in your blog or web site:
close
Email this page's link to a friend or colleague:
close