Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Neutrino Chernobyl

This blog is not on the theoretical-physics beat. We generally prefer engineering out here. So let's ask some crazy questions:

I poasted last May my (feeble) understanding of neutrino properties: great velocity, but sub-C so [tiny] mass. My neighbouring Turtle offered more understanding last month; various spectroscopes remain on the case. Lately the University of Hokkaido is offering interactions with... light.

At energies sufficient to merge the weak and electromagnetic forces, a "Hall Effect" is to apply... to neutrinos. This can happen in star plasma, and - Hokkaido claims - is happening at our own Sun. This is what is heating up our corona as hot as it is.

Thermodynamics would suggest, to me, that the neutrino and the photon exchange energy, with the photon taking it from the neutrino. As with cosmic rays, particles as go too fast might hit a photon, squirt out a pion, and slow down. But for all I know neutrinos might be quanta. Maybe that's how neutrinos change between "tau" and "electron" types. Something must be reduced, either rest-mass or velocity (which at relativistic speeds is also a mass function).

This rather leads to what might happen in fusion reactors, once they start fusing, so releasing photons and neutrinos. Teller's thermonuclear toy, like, exploded. Was some of its (unpredicted) extra heat due to neutrino / photon Hall? - ehh probably not. But what if this reaction were contained?

Could the added energy lead to quark fusion?

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