# Talk:Neutral current

WikiProject Physics (Rated Stub-class, Mid-importance)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
Stub  This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the project's quality scale.
Mid  This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

## Comment about etymology of the name

The interaction is often incorrectly believed to be called 'neutral' because the Z boson has no electric charge. However, the neutral current that gives the interaction its name is that of the interacting particles.

Aren't the two facts, the interacting particles preserving their charges and the neutrality of the Z boson complimentary? I can't see the difference and justify the comment above. - Fatka (talk · contribs) 07:36, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, see for example the section "Neutral Current Reaction" on the page for the SNO detector: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/sno/sno2.html 188.29.244.45 (talk) 14:56, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

## Formulae?

This article seems to use a bit of mathematical symbology that it does not define. For the average user such as myself, it's difficult to follow what these equations describe:

• ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {M}}^{\mathrm {NC} }\propto J_{\mu }^{\mathrm {(NC)} }(\nu _{\mathrm {e} })\;J^{\mathrm {(NC)} \mu }(\mathrm {e^{-}} )}$
• ${\displaystyle J^{\mathrm {(NC)} \mu }(f)={\bar {u}}_{f}\gamma ^{\mu }{\frac {1}{2}}\left(g_{V}^{f}-g_{A}^{f}\gamma ^{5}\right)u_{f},}$

It would be nice to see the meanings/physical implications of ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {M}}^{\mathrm {NC} }}$, ${\displaystyle J_{\mu }^{\mathrm {(NC)} }}$, ${\displaystyle J^{\mathrm {(NC)} \mu }}$, ${\displaystyle {\bar {u}}_{f}}$, ${\displaystyle u_{f}}$, ${\displaystyle \gamma ^{\mu }}$, and ${\displaystyle \gamma ^{5}}$ clearly enumerated in this article. At the very least, I feel that links to relevant explanatory articles are necessary. 18.111.8.158 (talk) 14:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

## In simple terms

Thought it would be nice to help average users as bit, as suggested by anonymous above, so have had a go.Reflection (talk) 18:09, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh, dammit the story about the terminology referring to the 'no electric charge bit' is murkier than I thought - off to consult at the literature. Reflection (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2017 (UTC).

Hmm, particularly in technical discussions, "neutral current" is used to refer to any interaction of any kind where there is no transfer of charge - so that, bearing in mind that photons are the exchange particle for the electromagnetic force, and they themselves carry no charge, electromagnetic effects are sometimes explicitly referred to as "neutral currents" -e.g. see Robert Mann (2011), An Introduction to Particle Physics and the Standard Model. 5.80.153.116 (talk) 02:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC) (Apologies - forgot to log in Reflection (talk) 02:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC))

Still, having looked at various more general discussions in CERN papers and nobel lectures, the current wording in this section appears to be fine, certainly at a simple level of detail. 5.80.153.116 (talk) 02:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC) Oops, sorry, wasn't logged in. Reflection (talk) 02:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)