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![]() | The contents of the Antineutrino page were merged into Neutrino on April 2010. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
When describing the mass of the neutrino, it is not necessary to tell the whole history of the search for the mass. It's best to describe some of the most recent estimates and some details, and put the history of the search in another section or another page. -- Thomas Barlow.
The WP articles for the electron, the proton, the neutron, and many others, give a lifetime; e.g., for the electron: "stable ( > 6.6×1028 yr)." What is a suitable entry for the neutrino? Ross Fraser ( talk) 06:23, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Is there succinct language that could be used in the info box to convey the above to the reader? This is useful info. Ross Fraser ( talk) 00:25, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
The neutrino mass section contains a paragraph starting with "In 2009, lensing data of a galaxy cluster were analyzed to predict a neutrino mass of about 1.5 eV...", which contains two citations of papers by Theo Nieuwenhizen. I've quickly looked at those papers now, and they do not contain bounds on the neutrino mass under standard cosmology. Instead, these are theoretical papers about a nonstandard model where neutrinos (normal+sterile) make up all dark matter, and 1.5 eV is the typical mass of an individual neutrino species in that model. These are not upper bounds, but the rough mass needed to make his model work. The cosmological consensus is that masses this high are strongly excluded. For example, the best current bounds are that the average neutrino mass must be less than 0.03 eV (= sum of masses less than 0.09 eV), 50 times lower than Niewenhuizen's value. Since this is a theoretical prediction for an unpopular alternative model, I think just stating these numbers as they are in the page will mislead the reader. I think they should either be removed, or moved into a separate section about alternative theories on the impact of neutrinos on the growth of structure or something. Amaurea ( talk) 09:01, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
This note seems inaccurate: "More specifically, Pauli postulated what is now called the electron neutrino."
Per /info/en/?search=Beta_decay Pauli did that in 1930, presumably for beta minus decay, since beta plus decay wasn't discovered until 1934. That article also says, "In beta minus (β−) decay, a neutron is converted to a proton, and the process creates an electron and an electron antineutrino; while in beta plus (β+) decay, a proton is converted to a neutron and the process creates a positron and an electron neutrino."
Consequently, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Pauli postulated what is now called the electron antineutrino? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.10.180.57 ( talk) 19:49, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
@ Eric Kvaalen inserted a statement that the mass of the lightest neutrino "may even be zero" [1]. First on the procedure: I think that after one revert it should be up to the inserting user to justify their addition. Nevertheless, here's the justification for my revert: The quote from Neil Turok's interview that is given as a reference is rather vague and incidental. The interview appears to (it is behind a paywall and not accessible to me) and the quote taken from the interview does discuss Turok's theory on parallel universes, not neutrinos as such (if neutrino is massless, then that supports his theory). It does not say why Turok thinks that a massless remains a viable option and why we should take his statement seriously (other than because he is a respected cosmologist). This may be a very particular view point, the reader of our article cannot know. As this addition is in the lead section (which should be treated very sensitively with respect to statements that may not reflect the general state of knowledge on the subject) I think it should go. If there are more specific statements in Turok's interview that can be further supported by published literature, then the statement can stay. -- Wrongfilter ( talk) 17:21, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
In other words, this is known. Strebe ( talk) 19:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)In particular, current experimental constraints allow for the possibility that one of the three right-handed neutrinos, , is exactly stable. (Note that at most one of the heavy right-handed neutrinos can be stable since, for every heavy right-handed neutrino that is stable, there is a corresponding light left-handed neutrino that is massless, and we know observationally that at most one of the light neutrinos is massless.
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