Borexino Sees First Evidence of Neutrinos from the Rare pep Solar Fusion Process
In a recently published article (
Phys.Rev.Lett. 108, 051302) the Borexino
Collaboration, including members of the Virginia Tech group lead by Prof. Bruce Vogelaar, announced a
first ever observation of neutrinos from the sun consistent with the rare fusion process in which two
light hydrogen nuclei, or protons, combine with an electron to make a heavy hydrogen nucleus, known as a
duteron, and an electron neutrino. This process know as
pep fusion is about 500 times less likely than the
primary
pp process in which a two protons combine to to make a duteron, and electron and an electron
neutrino. While neutrinos from the
pp fusion process are much more common, neutrinos from the
pep
process have higher energies, which makes it possible for them to be seen in the Borexino detector.
The Borexino observation is consistant with the Standard Solar Model prediction for flux of
neutrinos from the pep fusion combined with the best fit model of neutrino oscillations.
See the Article in APS
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