Weak neutral currents in the U₃(W)-gauge theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions

Abstract

A discussion is given of the implications of the recently proposed U₃(W)-gauge theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions (Pandit 1976) for some phenomena resulting from its weak neutral currents: (1) neutrino-electron scattering, (2) neutrino-nucleon elastic and inelastic scattering, (3) coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering (4) weak interaction effects in e⁺e^-→μ⁺μ^- and (5) parity-violation in atomic physics. The theory agrees quite well with the available experimental results on neutrino processes. We find the coherent neutrino-nucleus cross-section for Fe⁵⁶ to be about 6 times larger than that in the WS-GIM theory giving some hope of accounting for supernova explosion by the resulting neutrino-radiation pressure.