What's the difference between a Muon and a neutrino?

In summary, neutrinos are much lighter and do not carry electric charge compared to muons, and they only interact through the weak force. Muons are artificially created through proton collisions with a target or in particle collisions with high enough energy. The sun's fusion is not induced by muons, but they can be created in the sun through cosmic ray interactions. Muon neutrinos can also be produced in the sun, particularly for neutrinos from boron-8, but their energies are not high enough to create muons in a laboratory on Earth.
  • #1
Warpspeed13
125
2
What's the difference between a neutrino and a Muon? Will a neutrino induce fusion the same as a muon? Does muon induced fusion take place in the sun? Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
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  • #2
A neutrino is much lighter than a muon and does not carry electric charge. Therefore, it only interacts through the weak force and it could possibly be its own anti-particle. Just as there are three families of charged leptons (electon, muon, and tau), there are also three different neutrinos.

The fusion in the sun is induced by temperature and pressure, not by muons.
 
  • #3
How are muons artificially created then?
 
  • #4
They are different particles.
No there are no muons at the sun because the energies are not enough.
The muons are created by the interactions of cosmic rays with the atmosphere, and that's also the reason why the atmospheric ones were the first to be discovered.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/muonatm.html
 
  • #5
ChrisVer said:
No there are no muons at the sun because the energies are not enough.

This statement is not entirely accurate. Muons are created also in cosmic ray interactions with the solar corona just as they are created in the atmosphere of the earth. Of course, such muons will decay long before they could reach us and the only possible signal at the Earth would be the neutrino flux from such decays. In fact, this is one of the possible backgrounds for (indirect) dark matter searches at neutrino telescopes.
 
  • #6
Warpspeed13 said:
How are muons artificially created then?

Here's an old article about a proposal for a muon storage ring, in which the muons come from pion decay. The pions in turn come from protons colliding with a target.

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/28043

You can also get muon-antimuon pairs in any particle collision with high enough energy, just like you can get electron-positron pairs, pion-antipion pairs, etc. This isn't very efficient because most particle-antiparticle pairs end up being pions because they're the lightest charged particles. (I've seen them called the "small change [coins] of particle physics.")
 
  • #7
Orodruin said:
This statement is not entirely accurate. Muons are created also in cosmic ray interactions with the solar corona just as they are created in the atmosphere of the earth. Of course, such muons will decay long before they could reach us and the only possible signal at the Earth would be the neutrino flux from such decays. In fact, this is one of the possible backgrounds for (indirect) dark matter searches at neutrino telescopes.

Well the reason why I made that statement, was because we don't expect high rate of muon neutrinos from the sun. If the sun could indeed produce muons, it would be also a source of muon neutrinos. But the temperature of the sun varies from ~6,000 K to 16,000,000K which isn't enough for muon creation (100MeV). Of course muons can be produced in the sun in the same way as they do in our atmosphere- because of other cosmic rays.
 
  • #8
When talking about the sun producing muon neutrinos: the flavor flux of neutrinos from the sun actually contains a large proportion of muon neutrinos. In particular for neutrinos from boron-8, which have an energy (ca 10 MeV) such that they are (mostly) produced above the MSW resonance - but also at lower energies due to oscillations and mass eigenstate decoherence. Unfortunately, these energies are not high enough to create muons in a laboratory at the earth, but the effects can be observed by comparing neutral current interaction rates of solar neutrinos with those of the charged current and quasi elastic scattering reactions.
 

1. What is the basic difference between a muon and a neutrino?

The main difference between a muon and a neutrino is their charge. Muons have a negative charge, while neutrinos have no charge. This difference in charge also affects their interactions with matter and the strength of their interactions with other particles.

2. How do the masses of muons and neutrinos compare?

The mass of a muon is about 200 times greater than the mass of a neutrino. While the exact mass of a neutrino is still unknown, it is believed to be extremely small, possibly even zero. This difference in mass also affects their behavior and interactions in the subatomic world.

3. Can muons and neutrinos be created or destroyed?

Both muons and neutrinos can be created and destroyed through various processes in particle accelerators or during high-energy collisions between particles. However, they cannot be created or destroyed in isolation, and their production and decay are governed by the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of charge.

4. How do muons and neutrinos differ in terms of their stability?

Muons are relatively unstable particles and have a short lifespan, decaying into other particles within a fraction of a second. In contrast, neutrinos are considered to be stable particles, with a half-life that is expected to be longer than the age of the universe. This difference in stability also plays a role in their detection and study.

5. What are some real-world applications of muons and neutrinos?

Both muons and neutrinos have been used in various fields of science and technology. For example, muons are used in medical imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) scans, while neutrinos have been used to study the sun and other astrophysical phenomena. In addition, neutrinos have also been proposed as a potential source of clean and renewable energy through nuclear reactions.

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