A recent study of pre-supernatural neutrino particles (Supernova) helped scientists approach an understanding of what happens to stars before they explode and die, by explaining the first steps to interpreting data on the reading of neutrino particles released by a star before it explodes.
The study, which was reported on Phys.org on June 30, aimed to test scientists' unconfirmed predictions of stellar evolution models.
Postdoctoral researcher Ryosuke Hirai of the ARC Center for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) at the Australian University of Monash participated in the study.
Although there is a general understanding of how a massive superstar evolved and exploded, scientists are still unsure of the period leading up to the supernova explosion.
Many physicists have attempted to model these final stages, but the results appear random, and there is no way to confirm whether they are correct or not, except that the discovery of neutrino particles from the star before it turns into a supernova allows scientists to better evaluate these models.
So a team of OzGrav scientists investigated the later stages of stellar evolution models and their relevance to pre-supernova neutrino estimates.
A supernova, or supernova, is an astronomical event that takes place during the last evolutionary stages of the life of a huge star, where a massive stellar explosion occurs in which a star ejects its cover in space at the end of its life.
Neutrino particles
Before the stage of the explosion and the death of the star, it emits a large number of neutrino particles that are believed to drive the resulting supernova explosion. Where neutrino particles flow freely through and outside the star before the explosion reaches the star's surface. Scientists can discover these particles before the supernova occurs.
Scientists had already discovered a few dozen neutrino particles from a supernova that exploded in 1987, several hours before seeing the light from the explosion.
Neutrino particles are the strangest primary particles, which are much smaller than electrons, and travel at the speed of light in fantastic numbers through space.
It arises during some violent cosmic events such as the explosion of stars with great power. Because of their extreme smallness and speed, most neutrino particles leave no trace and are not detected by the sensors.
The existence of the neutrino was first inferred in 1930 by the Austrian theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, during the phenomenon of the decomposition of some radioisotopes and the release of beta rays.
When the radioactive element is decomposed into another element, a specific energy loss occurs. This energy loss is the difference between the energy of the radioactive element and the energy of the resulting element.
According to the law of non-annihilation of the energy, the electron released from the nucleus of the atom and out as a beam of beta rays must carry this difference in energy.
But the measurements showed that the electron carries less energy, and this is why Pauli assumed that there is a small particle that carries that deficient energy that we do not see and called it "neutrino", as it does not carry an electrical charge.
Neutrino detectors
It is expected that the next generation of neutrino detectors will discover about 50 thousand neutrinos of a kind similar to that of supernovae.
And given the power of technology, scientists expect to discover the weak neutrino signals that come out days before the explosion, as a kind of supernova expectation, and that will give alerts to astronomers to pick up the first light of the supernova. It is also one of the only ways to extract information directly from the star's core.
"This will help us make the most of the information from neutrino discoveries before the supernova in the future," says Ryosuke Hirai.
Because the next supernova can be present in our galaxy on any given day, scientists are looking to discover the pre-supernova neutrino, and take advantage of these data, after this study provided the first steps of how to interpret it.
Ultimately, scientists will be able to use the pre-supernova neutrino particles to understand the crucial parts of the massive stars evolution and the mechanism of the supernova explosion.