🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr9.152803.9171@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:


   I read in a recent New Scientist (a British science magazine that is
   about at the Scientific American level of technical detail) that there
   is a new explanation for the missing solar neutrinos. The explanation
   wasn't given in any detail in the article, but the rough idea is the
   following:

   The usual theoretical calculations done for nuclear fusion treats the
   case of collisions of bare nuclei. That is, only protons and neutrons
   are considered. However, in an actual nuclear reaction in the center
   of stars, there are huge numbers of electrons floating around. The
   electrons have an influence on the fusion reaction, because the
   negatively charged electrons to a certain extent shield the protons
   from the full effect of their electrical repulsion. Thus, the
   electrons can act as a kind of catalyst for fusion reactions, thus
   lowering the temperature necessary to achieve a sustained reaction.

   I don't know enough about fusion to understand how the temperature
   enters into neutrino calculations, but in the article it was claimed
   that the effect of the electrons would explain the missing neutrinos.

   Is there anyone familiar with this explanation who can give a more
   complete explanation (or explain why it is nonsense)?

I assume this is referring to the screening mechanism proposed by
Kurucz at the CfA. 
Bahcall and Salpeter have circulated a preprint pointing out that
the effect was known and calculated decades ago, using a full
quantum mechanical treatment (I believe the paper referred to
used a (semi???)classical approximation) and is not important.

|  Steinn Sigurdsson	|I saw two shooting stars last night		|
|  Lick Observatory	|I wished on them but they were only satellites	|
|steinly@helios.ucsc.edu|Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?		|
| "standard disclaimer"	|I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983	|