Encountering 'devil particles', rare treasures appearing in the Solar System?

German-Japanese scientists have proposed a new "cosmic alchemy" involving the "devil particle" neutrino .

According to SciTech Daily, a group of scientists has just proposed a new nuclear synthesis process with the symbol "vr" , which they call "devil particle alchemy". 

This process works when neutron-rich material is exposed to a stream of neutrinos, helping explain the existence of exotic isotopes such as 92 Mo, 94 Mo, 96 Ru, 98 Ru and 92 Nb in the solar system. primitive.

A supernova remnant believed to have created a magnetar was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. This magnetar will explode again and create another supernova with the appearance of the vr process - (Photo: NASA).

The above-mentioned isotopes are today a treasure of humanity, used in many fields such as nuclear science, cancer diagnosis and treatment, and a number of industries.

However, what has always puzzled the scientific community is how they appeared.

According to the widely accepted theory, each star forms with material from an older generation of stars that have exploded, and the fusion process within each star forges the universe with heavier elements.

This has made the universe as chemically rich as it is today, with many heavy elements.

The fusion processes that take place in massive stars produce nuclei the size of iron and nickel. Additionally, most elements with stable heavy nuclei, such as lead and gold, are created through slow or fast neutron capture.

The remainder are neutron-deficient isotopes of several elements, including the rare isotopes mentioned above. Scientists have proposed many different nuclear fusion processes before, but got stuck.

The vr process proposed by the German-Japanese team of authors led by researcher Zewei Xiong from the Helmholtz GSI National Heavy Ion Research Center (Germany) has resolved the above bottleneck.

Neutrinos are called "evil particles" because they exist all around us but no one can see them. It has almost no mass. It passes through everyone, everything, and the planet as easily as a ghost.

But the "devil particle" carries great energy, large enough to excite the nucleus to a state of decay by emitting neutrons, protons and alpha particles.

The emitted particles will be captured by some heavy nuclei. This causes a series of neutrino-catalyzed capture reactions that determine the final abundance of the elements produced by the νr process.

At the same time, this process also leaves behind seemingly inexplicable neutron-deficient nuclei of some rare isotopes.

The other thing scientists are looking for is the type of stellar explosion that could trigger the vr process. They suspect the culprit is dead stars with strong magnetism such as magnetars, a type of extreme neutron star. Neutron stars are the corpses of giant stars.

Fortunately, the research facilities of the members of this group of authors have the tools to determine that with future studies, said the paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters .