In the core of the Sun, energy is released through sequences of nuclear reactions that convert hydrogen into helium. The primary reaction is thought to be the fusion of two protons with the emission ...of a low-energy neutrino. These so-called pp neutrinos constitute nearly the entirety of the solar neutrino flux, vastly outnumbering those emitted in the reactions that follow. Although solar neutrinos from secondary processes have been observed, proving the nuclear origin of the Sun's energy and contributing to the discovery of neutrino oscillations, those from proton-proton fusion have hitherto eluded direct detection. Here we report spectral observations of pp neutrinos, demonstrating that about 99 per cent of the power of the Sun, 3.84 × 10(33) ergs per second, is generated by the proton-proton fusion process.
Abstract
The ability of protocols based on the B2PLYPD/6-311+G**//B3LYP/6-31+G* method with various schemes for accounting for nonspecific solvation to reproduce C-H, N-H, O-H and S-H acidity in a ...dimethyl sulfoxide medium is considered. For a selected set of 20 compounds, typical reagents for reactions in superbasic media, the IEFPCM scheme with UFF cavity and α = 1.35 multiplier yields better results than the popular SMD model.
For most of their existence, stars are fuelled by the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Fusion proceeds via two processes that are well understood theoretically: the proton-proton (pp) chain and the ...carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) cycle
. Neutrinos that are emitted along such fusion processes in the solar core are the only direct probe of the deep interior of the Sun. A complete spectroscopic study of neutrinos from the pp chain, which produces about 99 per cent of the solar energy, has been performed previously
; however, there has been no reported experimental evidence of the CNO cycle. Here we report the direct observation, with a high statistical significance, of neutrinos produced in the CNO cycle in the Sun. This experimental evidence was obtained using the highly radiopure, large-volume, liquid-scintillator detector of Borexino, an experiment located at the underground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. The main experimental challenge was to identify the excess signal-only a few counts per day above the background per 100 tonnes of target-that is attributed to interactions of the CNO neutrinos. Advances in the thermal stabilization of the detector over the last five years enabled us to develop a method to constrain the rate of bismuth-210 contaminating the scintillator. In the CNO cycle, the fusion of hydrogen is catalysed by carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, and so its rate-as well as the flux of emitted CNO neutrinos-depends directly on the abundance of these elements in the solar core. This result therefore paves the way towards a direct measurement of the solar metallicity using CNO neutrinos. Our findings quantify the relative contribution of CNO fusion in the Sun to be of the order of 1 per cent; however, in massive stars, this is the dominant process of energy production. This work provides experimental evidence of the primary mechanism for the stellar conversion of hydrogen into helium in the Universe.
The CUPID-Mo experiment at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (France) is a demonstrator for CUPID, the next-generation ton-scale bolometric 0νββ experiment. It consists of a 4.2 kg array of 20 ...enriched Li2 100MoO4 scintillating bolometers to search for the lepton-number-violating process of 0νββ decay in 100Mo. With more than one year of operation (100Mo exposure of 1.17 kg × yr for physics data), no event in the region of interest and, hence, no evidence for 0νββ is observed. We report a new limit on the half-life of 0νββ decay in 100Mo of T1/2 > 1.5 × 1024 yr at 90% C.I. The limit corresponds to an effective Majorana neutrino mass ⟨m β β⟩ < (0.31 –0.54 ) eV, dependent on the nuclear matrix element in the light Majorana neutrino exchange interpretation.
High light collection efficiency is an important requirement in any application of scintillation detectors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility for improving this parameter in ...cryogenic scintillation bolometers, which can be considered as promising detectors in experiments investigating neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter. Energy resolutions and relative pulse amplitudes of scintillation detectors using ZnWO sub(4) scintillation crystals of different shapes (cylinder empty_set 2020 mm and hexagonal prism with diagonal 20 mm and height 20 mm), reflector materials and shapes, optical contact and surface properties (polished and diffused) were measured at room temperature. Propagation of optical photons in these experimental conditions was simulated using Geant4 and ZEMAX codes. The results of the simulations are found to be in good agreement with each other and with direct measurements of the crystals. This could be applied to optimize the geometry of scintillation detectors used in the cryogenic experiments.
A long-term measurement was conducted to search for α, double-α and double-β decays with γ quanta emission in naturally occurring osmium isotopes. This study took advantage of two ultra-low ...background HPGe detectors and one ultra-low background BEGe detector at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) of the INFN. Over almost 5 years of data were taken using high-purity osmium samples of approximately 173 g. The half-life limits set for α decays of
184
Os to the first 2
+
103.6 keV excited level of
180
W (
T
1/2
≥ 9.3 × 10
15
yr) and of
186
Os to the first 2
+
100.1 keV of
182
W (
T
1/2
≥ 4.8 × 10
17
yr) exceed substantially the present theoretical predictions that are at level of
T
1/2
~ (0.6–3) × 10
15
yr for
184
Os and
T
1/2
~ (0.3–2) × 10
17
yr for
186
Os. New half-life limits on the 2EC and ECβ
+
decay of
184
Os to the ground and excited levels of
184
W were set at level of
T
1/2
> 10
16
–10
17
yr; a lower limit on the 2β
–
decay of
192
Os to the 2
+
316.5 keV excited level of
192
Pt was estimated as
T
1/2
≥ 6.1 × 10
20
yr. The half-life limits for 2α decay of
189
Os and
192
Os were set for the first time at level of
T
1/2
> 10
20
yr.
The search for neutrino events in correlation with gravitational wave (GW) events for three observing runs (O1, O2 and O3) from 09/2015 to 03/2020 has been performed using the Borexino data-set of ...the same period. We have searched for signals of neutrino-electron scattering and inverse beta-decay (IBD) within a time window of Formula omitted s centered at the detection moment of a particular GW event. The search was done with three visible energy thresholds of 0.25, 0.8 and 3.0 MeV. Two types of incoming neutrino spectra were considered: the mono-energetic line and the supernova-like spectrum. GW candidates originated by merging binaries of black holes (BHBH), neutron stars (NSNS) and neutron star and black hole (NSBH) were analyzed separately. Additionally, the subset of most intensive BHBH mergers at closer distances and with larger radiative mass than the rest was considered. In total, follow-ups of 74 out of 93 gravitational waves reported in the GWTC-3 catalog were analyzed and no statistically significant excess over the background was observed. As a result, the strongest upper limits on GW-associated neutrino and antineutrino fluences for all flavors ( Formula omitted) at the level Formula omitted have been obtained in the 0.5-5 MeV neutrino energy range.
Mechanism of (
E
,
Z
)-1,3-diaryl-2-azadienes stereoselective formation from
N
-benzylketimines and acetylene in the superbasic KO
t
-Bu/DMSO environment is considered within the density functional ...theory on the example of
N
-benzyl-1-phenylethane-1-imine vinylation.
Abstract
The mechanism of intramolecular nucleophilic addition in αβ-unsaturated oximes, as well as the effect of the anionic center hydration with one and two water molecules on the activation ...barriers of intramolecular cyclization, was studied using the B2PLYP-D2/6-311+G**//B3LYP(D)/6-31+G* method with the solvation effects included within the SMD model. The activation barrier for nucleophilic addition of the anionic center of the oxime group to the carbon skeleton of 3-ethyl-N-hydroxy-5-phenylpenten-3-imine-2 is about 21 kcal/mol. During the hydration of the anionic center with one water molecule, a strong complex is formed, which increases the activation barrier by ∼ 6 kcal / mol. The addition of a second water molecule leads to an even higher activation barrier (
ΔG
‡ = 28 kcal/mol), but promotes the binding of the leaving hydroxide ion.
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