3 ms·
Even if this is a rare or difficult event, wouldn't it be happening fairly often inside stars because of the law of large numbers? And if so, would it be visibl
by imglorp 7y ago
Even if this is a rare or difficult event, wouldn't it be happening fairly often inside stars because of the law of large numbers? And if so, would it be visible to astronomers somehow?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tempay 7y agoIt will happen lots but it’s unlikely astronomers would be able to observe the effect due to how rare it is. Generally making very precise/sensitive measurements like this requires control over the conditions in a laboratory so you reject the more common processes.
- SiempreViernes 7y agoThe problem with that idea is that the insides of stars is full of other non-transparent stuff that photons strongly interact with. The chances to interact is proportional to the cross section, which for an electron is around 0.6 barn. In comparison, the cross section for photon-photon interaction was measured as 70 nanobarn, so there's a factor of 10^8 difference in probability of interaction. Photons doesn't outnumber electrons by such factors. Further, there are plenty of atoms in the outer layers of a star, and these have something like another 10^8 advantage over electrons.