Why don't neutrinos pass through atoms?

[Chrisana]

TL;DR

Neutrino

Summary: Neutrino

A neutrino smashes into an atom and creates an electron - why doesn't the neutrino pass through the atom?

 

[sophiecentaur]

Summary: Neutrino

A neutrino smashes into an atom and creates an electron - why doesn't the neutrino pass through the atom?

Afaik, most of them do, which is why they are so hard to detect. Neutrinos are produced by nuclear reactions on a regular basis but the reverse process is much less probable. Which raises the question of where are all these neutrinos going. Is the level just building up??

 

[ZapperZ]

Summary: Neutrino

A neutrino smashes into an atom and creates an electron - why doesn't the neutrino pass through the atom?

It does! Overwhelming majority of them do! Otherwise they won't be so elusive from detection.

Zz.

 

[mfb]

I moved the thread to the particle physics section.

A typical neutrino cross section at 1 GeV is 10^-38 cm². Compare this to the typical geometric size of a nucleus, 10^-25 cm²: Only one in 10 trillion neutrinos will interact with the nucleus, the others fly just through it. At lower energies the probability of a reaction is even smaller.

 

[Dale]

But on those rare occasions when it does interact the interaction is due to the weak nuclear force.

 

[Chrisana]

Thank you all for your kind replies.