{"id":369037,"date":"2026-08-06T15:52:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=369037"},"modified":"2026-08-06T15:52:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:22:55","slug":"neutrinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/neutrinos\/","title":{"rendered":"Neutrinos"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content-box-green\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>News: <\/strong>Researchers can track spent nuclear fuel and detect illicit plutonium extraction by measuring anti Neutrino (&#8220;ghost particle&#8221;) signatures from reactors and cooling pools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"red-h2-box\">About Neutrinos<\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 349px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.cbc.ca\/ais\/1.4743770%2C1531425181000\/full\/max\/0\/default.jpg?resize=349%2C465&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Neutrino\" width=\"349\" height=\"465\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: cbc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neutrinos are <strong>fascinating and elusive particles<\/strong> that form an essential part of the standard model of particle physics.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">They are sometimes called <strong>\u201c<em>ghost particles<\/em>\u201d<\/strong> because <strong>they pass invisibly through almost all matter.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are<strong> fundamental particles, much like electrons or quarks,<\/strong> but they interact extremely weakly with matter, making them incredibly difficult to detect.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>First postulated:<\/strong> They were<strong>\u00a0first postulated by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Properties of Neutrinos:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Electric Charge:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They are<\/span><b> electrically neutral particles<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which mean they do not carry any electric charge. <\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This property distinguishes them from particles like electrons and quarks, which have fractional or integer electric charges.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Mass: <\/b>They <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are <strong>electrically neutral and have very small masses,<\/strong> which were long thought to be zero, but recent discoveries suggest they might have a tiny mass after all.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Spin:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They are <strong>fermions, which mean they have half-integer spin<\/strong> (specifically spin 1\/2). <\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is consistent with the properties of other fermions in the Standard Model, such as electrons and quarks.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Flavour States:<\/strong> They come in <\/span><b>three types or flavours: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos, and tau neutrinos.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Flavour Mixing and Oscillations: <\/b>They<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0can<strong> oscillate between these flavours as they travel through space. <\/strong>This\u00a0phenomenon was first observed in the late 20th century and provides crucial evidence for their small but nonzero masses.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Interaction Cross Section: <\/b>They<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>\u00a0interact extremely weakly with matter through the weak nuclear force,<\/strong> making them notoriously difficult to detect.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They can <strong>also interact via gravity and possibly through other unknown forces if they exist beyond the Standard Mode<\/strong>l. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This weak interaction property allows neutrinos to traverse vast distances through matter with minimal absorption or scattering.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Cosmic Abundance:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They are also <strong>incredibly abundant in the universe, second only to photons, with trillions of neutrinos<\/strong> passing through every square centimetre of our bodies every second, originating from sources like the sun and cosmic rays.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Neutrino less Double-Beta Decay: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is an on-going search for a hypothetical process called neutrino less double-beta decay, which, if detected, would indicate that neutrinos are their own antiparticles (Majorana particles).\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This process could provide insights into the absolute mass scale of neutrinos and other properties beyond those currently understood.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Importance:<\/strong> Studying neutrinos is <strong>critical for understanding a wide range of phenomena in astrophysics and cosmology,<\/strong> from the inner workings of stars to the dynamics of supernovae explosions.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Neutrino detectors <\/strong>around the world,<strong> such as those in underground laboratories or deep in the ice of Antarctica,<\/strong> continue to push the boundaries of our knowledge about these mysterious particles<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News: Researchers can track spent nuclear fuel and detect illicit plutonium extraction by measuring anti Neutrino (&#8220;ghost particle&#8221;) signatures from reactors and cooling pools. About Neutrinos Neutrinos are fascinating and elusive particles that form an essential part of the standard model of particle physics. They are sometimes called \u201cghost particles\u201d because they pass invisibly through&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/neutrinos\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Neutrinos<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10366,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1738,12039],"tags":[11872,10498],"class_list":["post-369037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-science-and-technology-daily-factly-articles","category-knolls","tag-9pm-daily-factly","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}