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Comment by adrian_b

Usually the neutrino will interact with a nucleus and what happens is the reverse of a beta decay, i.e. either a proton will be changed into a neutron or a neutron into a proton, with the emission of an electron or a positron.

So one atom will be converted into an atom of another element, which is a neighbor to it in the periodic table.

Because one neutral lepton goes in and one charged lepton goes out, you might say that the neutrino snatches an electric charge from a nucleus, transmuting it into the nucleus of another element. However this interaction happens extremely seldom. In most cases the neutrino passes by without any effects.

Nevertheless, there has been a proposal to generate extremely powerful neutrino beams, with which to destroy any hidden nuclear weapons.

parent adrian_b 5 years ago

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