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What could explain the gallium anomaly?

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Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#91

Post by timcobb »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #53
geuis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad we agree on China at least. I highly disagree about Russia being a modern nuclear power. China and Israel are really the only countries that have the modern infrastructure required to maintain significant nuclear presences other than the US. Russia today is mostly living off of the remnants of pre-1985 Soviet energy infrastructure investments. They have some nuclear capability, but it's far, far below what the U…

a) This isn't true, quite the opposite. b) The shilling for "#yolo, let's start nuclear war with Russia" is a bad idea. Trust me. You don't want to go there.

> b) The shilling for "#yolo, let's start nuclear war with Russia" is a bad idea. Trust me. You don't want to go there.

Russia already went there. We're already there.

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#92

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #72
timcobb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in the world as a hostage to nuclear weapon yielding crazies is a fate worse than death for some free-minded people.

Shame about those free-minded people; everyone else understands that it's how the world works and why everything isn't on fire. MAD is the foundation of international politics; everything else is role-playing on top of it.

[deleted]

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#93

Post by chr1 »

geuis wrote: post #45
bawolff wrote: post #29

> While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has complicated things,” Elliott said, the collaboration between the U.S. and Russia on BEST is still ongoing, for now. Nice to hear in these uncertain times.

How is that "nice"? The fact that 3 years in we are still collaborating with Russia on the ISS and in other scientific programs is deeply disturbing. I get that the ISS is a special circumstance and a difficult knot to unravel. That's an extremely unique situation and it's not worth digging into at length for this situation. Life support onboard for all occupants relies on a continuing collaboration. Beyond the ISS s…

> The fact that 3 years in we are still collaborating with Russia on the ISS and in other scientific programs is deeply disturbing.

Do you think Putin cares about scientific programs enough to stop killing people?

All the "we won't talk to Putin, but will buy Russian gas reexported by another murderer Aliyev" is very nice and emotional, but it did not have any positive effect.

If instead of all of this theater with sanctions, EU and US gave more weapons from the start, and removed regulations to drop oil prices, Ukraine would have won at the end of 2022, and at a much smaller cost than damage to the EU economy already caused by sanctions.

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#94

Post by gus_massa »

keepamovin wrote: post #60

Could the gallium anomaly be explained by something far more prosaic? For example, in water, there are all kinds of species of different anions and cations present, existing in equilibrium with each other. Water forms complex semi-crystalline structures by virtue of hydrogen bonds. Although they are not true crystals, the supramolecular structures of individual water molecules and the valence species create a sophist…

Neutrinos can pass through the whole Earth, and almost none of them is stoped. A trick to get a neutrino ray and block all other particles is to not build a tunel and let a few miles of soil absorb all other particles. So a few electrons more or less concentrated arround a gallium atom have no effect. Considering the electronic distribution is an interesting idea, but not for the shelling effect.

This is not my area so I have to guess more than what I'm confortable. Anyway, the difference between the electons in gallium and germanium is an aditional electron in a p orbital. An electron in a p orbital has some probability of beein nearby the nuclei.

The decay from germanium to galium is an electron capture Ge + e -> Ga + ν , so the "postion" of the electon is important, but I'm not sure how important. But in this experiment they are measuring the inverse reaction Ga + ν -> Ge + e and comparing the rates of both reactions.

So ... perhaps it's possible that the change of the electon density distribution causes a change in these decay/undecay. I never heard something similar, and I expect the effect is neligible, but this is not my area so I can't rule it out.

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#95

Post by gus_massa »

dmurray wrote: post #88
gus_massa wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gallium is not a source of sterile neutrino. Gallium is a good "electonic neutrino" target. The problem is that they only detect the 80% of the "electonic neutrino" that they expect and they have no clue of the cause. One of the posibilities is that the other 20% of the "electonic neutrinos" mutate to "sterile neutrinos" during the trip. (Note that there are 3 types of neutrinos and it's possible that there are also…

I'd still like to ask a version of the same question, is gallium so special that it only makes sense to do this experiment with gallium? If sterile neutrinos cause the production of germanium from gallium to be 80% of what we thought it was, will there be other nuclear reactions that we now don't understand? E.g. a given plutonium reaction produces 100g of uranium, currently consistent with the theoretical model, aft…

It's a good question.

In another experiment they are measuring the decay form germanium to gallium, and in this experiment they are forcing an "udecay" fro gallium to germanium. I think both decaya are too complex to be calculated theoricaly, but the rates can be compared and in the comparison they note the problem.

* Perhaps the energy of the decay is small and it's easy to get neutrinos with enough energy to revert it???

* The ammount of gallium they get is tiny, perhaps it's easier to process a liquid target to detect it???

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#96

Post by keepamovin »

gus_massa wrote: post #94
keepamovin wrote: post #60

Could the gallium anomaly be explained by something far more prosaic? For example, in water, there are all kinds of species of different anions and cations present, existing in equilibrium with each other. Water forms complex semi-crystalline structures by virtue of hydrogen bonds. Although they are not true crystals, the supramolecular structures of individual water molecules and the valence species create a sophist…

Neutrinos can pass through the whole Earth, and almost none of them is stoped. A trick to get a neutrino ray and block all other particles is to not build a tunel and let a few miles of soil absorb all other particles. So a few electrons more or less concentrated arround a gallium atom have no effect. Considering the electronic distribution is an interesting idea, but not for the shelling effect. This is not my area…

Yes I understand the traditional objections to this idea. I don’t think you’ve quite grasped what I propose tho. Consider this: The reaction v_e + (71)Ga → (71)Ge + e− involves the release of an electron. The local electronic environment, including electron orbitals or metallic bonds in liquid gallium, can influence this electron's energy levels and spatial distribution. These changes can affect the reaction rate and shift the equilibrium position of the reaction, potentially making the forward reaction less favored and accounting for the 20% discrepancy. So, while neutrinos primarily interact via the weak nuclear force, the electron release means the local electronic environment can subtly impact the overall reaction dynamics.

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#97

Post by lazide »

justinator wrote: post #83
lazide wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia also excels at MAD. And suffering.

Suffering yes -- to an extend that we here in the US have little understanding the depths of. But re: MAD, my point may have been the emperor's new clothes.

The depths of... so far.

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#98

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

timcobb wrote: post #91
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) This isn't true, quite the opposite. b) The shilling for "#yolo, let's start nuclear war with Russia" is a bad idea. Trust me. You don't want to go there.

> b) The shilling for "#yolo, let's start nuclear war with Russia" is a bad idea. Trust me. You don't want to go there. Russia already went there. We're already there.

No, the constant shilling of the idea that "don't worry, Russia won't do anything anyways" isn't coming from Russia's side.

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#99

Post by gus_massa »

keepamovin wrote: post #96
gus_massa wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neutrinos can pass through the whole Earth, and almost none of them is stoped. A trick to get a neutrino ray and block all other particles is to not build a tunel and let a few miles of soil absorb all other particles. So a few electrons more or less concentrated arround a gallium atom have no effect. Considering the electronic distribution is an interesting idea, but not for the shelling effect. This is not my area…

Yes I understand the traditional objections to this idea. I don’t think you’ve quite grasped what I propose tho. Consider this: The reaction v_e + (71)Ga → (71)Ge + e− involves the release of an electron. The local electronic environment, including electron orbitals or metallic bonds in liquid gallium, can influence this electron's energy levels and spatial distribution. These changes can affect the reaction rate and…

Then we agree. I though you were thinking about shelling like a plumber wall or like the core electrons in an atom.

In the released electron has low energy, perhaps some change of the electriñonic configuration may cause a problem(???). (Triple question mark because I think it's possible but I never heard something similar.)

Also, in solid germanium the electronic didtribution is affected by the bands, that is another can of worms. In liquid gallium I'm not sure what happens. (And an isolated germanium atom disolved in liquid gallium may have also an unusual electronic distribution.)

Re: What could explain the gallium anomaly?

#100

Post by FabHK »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #58
Terr_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is (still) a great tool for this sort of conversion Alas, not in this case, since Google is interpreting that as a 42-gallon "petrochemical-industry traditional abstract measuring unit of crude oil" as opposed to a 55-gallon "physical container readers may have seen and everybody actually uses." (Including to hold crude oil, in the rare cases that it's not in an enormous tank or pipeline.) Perhaps this is an…

It is remarkable that you spotted the inaccuracy. You make a good point about it being wrong but not wrong enough. OTOH, the correct answer by your reasoning is 44 barrels. For my purposes, 58 is right enough. I can't even visualize the difference between 44 and 58 barrels. 44 barrels is about 323 cubic feet (9.1 cubic meters). That's about the size of my bathroom. 57 tons in my tiny bathroom. Gallium is shockingly d…

Yes, it's a cube with sides of just a touch more than 2m (7ft). Remarkable.
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