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From: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: StarDate: October 27 The Amazing Sun
Message-ID: <592@epimass.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Nov-86 15:34:04 EST
Article-I.D.: epimass.592
Posted: Sat Nov  1 15:34:04 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Nov-86 23:46:22 EST
References: <1363@utastro.UUCP> <300@prometheus.UUCP> <1369@utastro.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 32


In article <300@prometheus.UUCP>, pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc) writes:
<< Almost true!. We are keeping track of the the neutrinos, and
<< it's a good thing too,  apparently someone left the burner on
<< simmer, 'cause we are only picking of half of what we should be
<< finding.

In article <1369@utastro.UUCP> ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) writes:
>Actually it's almost a factor of three...
>Nevertheless I would rate the possibility that the sun is turning off
>as fairly low.  More likely we have some detail about the structure
>of the core wrong (since we are only sensitive to the high energy
>tail of the neutrino distribution) or some detail about neutrino
>physics wrong.  There is a possibility that the electron neutrinos 
>created in the sun could be converted, with near 100% efficiency
>into other kinds of neutrinos before leaving the sun.

Three types of neutrinos are known:  the electron neutrino, the muon
neutrino, and the tau neutrino.  It is my (possibly confused)
understanding that if the neutrino has a nonzero rest mass, there
should be an "oscillation":  the neutrino will interconvert among the
three types.  This makes the factor of three very interesting.  There
are some proposals to build muon neutrino detectors; this may shed
some light on the issue.  

Disclaimer:  I am not a physicist.  However, I avidly read every
particle physics or astrophysics article Scientific American, or
other reasonably accessible sources, prints (too bad Science 86 is
dead), and that's where this information comes from.  
-- 
- Joe Buck 	{hplabs,ihnp4}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck
  Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, California