An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A hypothetical type of → neutrino which does not participate in the → weak interaction. It would arise only from ordinary neutrinos oscillating into a sterile form (singlet, right handed → helicity). The sterile neutrino is a candidate for the → dark matter. Sterile neutrinos might have been produced in primordial plasma in the → early Universe. The idea of sterile neutrino was first proposed by Bruno Pontecorvo (1967) in a paper which also discussed neutrino oscillations.

See also: → sterile; → neutrino.