Electron neutrino

The electron neutrino is an electrically neutral elementary particle and the neutrino flavor produced alongside electrons in weak interactions. It participates in the weak interaction and can oscillate into muon or tau neutrinos.

Weak interaction: A fundamental interaction that changes particle flavors and governs processes such as beta decay. Electron neutrinos are produced and detected through this interaction.
Neutrino: A neutral elementary fermion that interacts primarily through the weak interaction and gravity. The electron neutrino is one of the three known neutrino flavors.
Solar neutrino: A neutrino produced by nuclear reactions in the Sun. Solar electron neutrinos exposed the discrepancy between predicted and detected fluxes.
Wolfgang Pauli: An Austrian theoretical physicist who proposed the neutrino in 1930 to account for energy conservation in beta decay. His proposal began the particle’s history, before neutrino flavors were established.
Neutrino oscillation: The quantum-mechanical transformation of neutrinos among electron, muon, and tau flavors during propagation. It allows an electron neutrino to arrive as a different flavor.
Lepton: An elementary fermion that does not participate in the strong interaction. Neutrinos and their charged partners belong to this particle family.
Reactor neutrino: An electron antineutrino emitted by fission products in a nuclear reactor. Reactor antineutrino experiments test oscillations involving the electron flavor.
Enrico Fermi: An Italian physicist who developed the first theory of beta decay and named the neutrino. His theory incorporated the neutrino into weak nuclear processes.
Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata matrix: A matrix describing how neutrino flavor states relate to neutrino mass states. Its mixing angles and phase govern electron-neutrino flavor change.
Electron: A negatively charged elementary lepton with a very small mass. It shares the electron flavor designation and weak-interaction pairing with this neutrino.

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