[ExI] electroweak stars

spike spike66 at att.net
Sat Jan 23 19:33:12 UTC 2010


In the psi discussion, a good point is that new phyical phenomena are still
being discovered in our enlightened age.
 
Here's an exciting development, electroweak stars:
 
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/22/science-adds-new-class-stars-elect
roweak/?test=latestnews
 

Science Adds a New Class of Stars: Electroweak


By Clara Moskowitz

 - Space.com 


NASA/Russell Croman Astrophotography

Physicsts believe a new class of stars -- dubbed "electroweak" stars -- are
hiding out somewhere in the universe.

Scientists have proposed a new class of star, one with an exotic stellar
engine that would emit mostly hard-to-detect neutrinos instead of photons of
light like regular stars.

These objects, dubbed "electroweak stars," are plausible because of the
<http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070821_st_unified_theory.html>
Standard Model of physics -  though none have been detected yet - partly
because they wouldn't shine very brightly in visible light.

A team of physicists led by Glenn Starkman of Ohio's Case Western Reserve
University describe the structure of such stars in a paper recently
submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.

An electroweak star could come into being toward the end of a massive star's
life, after nuclear fusion has stopped in its core, but before the star
collapses into a black hole, the researchers found.

At this point, the temperature and density inside a star could be so high,
subatomic particles called
<http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080603-aas-neutron-quark.html> quarks
(which are the building blocks of protons and neutrons) could be converted
into lighter particles called leptons, which include electrons and
neutrinos.

"In this process, which we call electroweak burning, huge amounts of energy
can be released," the researchers wrote in the scientific paper.

Unfortunately for observers, much of that energy would be in the form of
<http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080307-wmap-neutrinos.html>
neutrinos, which are very light neutral particles that can pass through
ordinary matter without interacting, making them very difficult to detect.

A small fraction of an electroweak star's output would be in the form of
light, though, which is where astronomers could concentrate their efforts to
observe them. But, "to understand that small fraction, we have to understand
the star better than we do," Starkman said.

If electroweak stars do exist, they could last at least 10 million years,
the physicists found.

"This is long enough to represent a new stage in the evolution of a star if
<http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060418_star_clusters.html> stellar
evolution can take it there," the researchers wrote.

Nonetheless, such a period of time is still merely a blink of an eye for
most stars, which live for billions of years.

"Electroweak stars would be an exciting addition to the diverse menagerie of
astrophysical bodies that the universe provides," the scientists wrote.
"Nevertheless, considerable work remains to be done before we can claim with
confidence that such objects will form in the natural process of stellar
evolution, or that they will indeed burn steadily for an extended period."

Copyright C 2010 Space.com. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be
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