4 ms·

I'd still like to ask a version of the same question, is gallium so special that it only makes sense to do this experiment with gallium? If sterile neutrinos c

I'd still like to ask a version of the same question, is gallium so special that it only makes sense to do this experiment with gallium? If sterile neutrinos cause the production of germanium from gallium to be 80% of what we thought it was, will there be other nuclear reactions that we now don't understand? E.g. a given plutonium reaction produces 100g of uranium, currently consistent with the theoretical model, after sterile neutrinos are confirmed will we be saying hang on, this should only produce 80g of uranium with the new model, something else is wrong? Presumably not, at least with well-understood reactions, so why is gallium so special here?

gus_massa 2y ago
It's a good question. In another experiment they are measuring the decay form germanium to gallium, and in this experiment they are forcing an "udecay" fro gallium to germanium. I think both decaya are too complex to be calculated theoricaly, but the rates can be compared and in the comparison they note the problem. * Perhaps the energy of the decay is small and it's easy to get neutrinos with enough energy to revert it??? * The ammount of gallium they get is tiny, perhaps it's easier to process a liquid target to detect it???