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Concept
Electron neutrino
Summary
The electron neutrino (_Electron neutrino) is an elementary particle which has zero electric charge and a spin of . Together with the electron, it forms the first generation of leptons, hence the name electron neutrino. It was first hypothesized by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930, to account for missing momentum and missing energy in beta decay, and was discovered in 1956 by a team led by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines (see Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment).
In the early 1900s, theories predicted that the electrons resulting from beta decay should have been emitted at a specific energy. However, in 1914, James Chadwick showed that electrons were instead emitted in a continuous spectrum.
_Neutron0 → _Proton+ + _Electron-
The early understanding of beta decay
In 1930, Wolfgang Pauli theorized that an undetected particle was carrying away the observed difference between the energy, momentum, and angular momentum of the initial and final particles.
_Neutron0 → _Proton+ + _Electron- + _Electron antineutrino0
Pauli's version of beta decay
On 4 December 1930, Pauli wrote a letter to the Physical Institute of the Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, in which he proposed the electron "neutron" [neutrino] as a potential solution to solve the problem of the continuous beta decay spectrum. A translated excerpt of his letter reads:
Dear radioactive ladies and gentlemen,
As the bearer of these lines [...] will explain more exactly, considering the 'false' statistics of N-14 and Li-6 nuclei, as well as the continuous β-spectrum, I have hit upon a desperate remedy to save the "exchange theorem" of statistics and the energy theorem. Namely [there is] the possibility that there could exist in the nuclei electrically neutral particles that I wish to call neutrons, which have spin 1/2 and obey the exclusion principle, and additionally differ from light quanta in that they do not travel with the velocity of light: The mass of the neutron must be of the same order of magnitude as the electron mass and, in any case, not larger than 0.
Official source
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