The pictures alone are gorgeous (are they supposed to be gorgeous or just interesting?).Hello @lemouth,
I will not comment until I have put my busy day behind me. I need to concentrate when I read this material...
11:56 PM EST, the house is quiet and I have read your blog. There is a certain pleasure in knowing that I "get" most of it, or at least the thrust of your research, I believe. Amazing.
Let me start by complimenting you on the diagram that shows a neutron becoming a proton. I actually counted the little red and blue circles. Anyone who ever solved an equation can understand why the electron and the neutrino have to share energy: because the equation has to balance. If we figure out the weight of the electron, then we can figure out the weight of the neutrino, because together their weight has to balance the equation (equal weight to the original nucleus). I'm sorry to explain what you already know, but I do think I get it and that makes me happy.
Even the neutrinoless process I sort of get. There is no neutrino at the end of the process because the boson (fuzzy concept here) exchange neutrinos so in the end we just have electrons.
Thank you, @lemouth. I don't think I have a question (unless my statement above is wrong), but I may tomorrow. There are still some fuzzy parts, but overall your conversation makes sense. It's like listening to a foreign language and missing some words but understanding the overall gist of the message.
Good luck in this amazing research. It's wonderful--a gift--that you are allowing us to witnesses this frontier-shattering adventure as it progresses.
Have a great, productive week.
Thanks once again for passing by and regularly reading my blogs!
I imagine you refer to the three pictures related to real detectors, that are indeed very beautiful (in my opinion). I have unfortunately never seen those detectors with my own eyes. The IceCube detector lies in Antarctica, so that visiting it may forever be an issue because of distance. The NOvA one is located at Fermilab, close to Chicago. I however don't know to which extent it can be seen in action. The same holds for the KATRIN detector based at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology).
For the rest, what you summarised is correct. Note that instead of talking in terms of mass, it is better to talk in terms of energy. Mass is just one form of energy, as kinetic and potential energy. What is important is that the total energy budget is conserved in any process. Then it is possible to convert some energy of a given type (e.g. mass) into some energy of another type (e.g. kinetic energy).
I am looking forward for any further questions you may have later today (which is tomorrow for you ;) ). Have a great week too!