As explained in the previous installment of this series, these questions are a warm-up for my younger colleagues, who will in two months have to pass a tough exam to become INFN researchers.
A disclaimer follows:
I offer these questions as a self-test of one's knowledge in particle physics. I am not part of the INFN selection committee. I have no connection to the selection committee, nor any insider information on how the exam will be structured. All I know about it is what is contained in the official call, available to everybody. I do have some previous experience with INFN selections of researchers, but this needs not be relevant for the present one.
So today's question is a more descriptive one - no real calculations are needed. There are two parts, and the candidate may choose the part he or she prefers to answer.
- Draw a rough sketch of the energy spectrum of neutrinos emitted by the Sun, and discuss succinctly the relevance of the various parts of the spectrum for solar neutrino studies on Earth.
- Draw a rough sketch of the branching ratios of Higgs boson decays, for a hypothetical Standard Model-like Higgs boson in the 50 to 500 GeV range. Discuss succinctly the reason for the features you draw in the curves.
