An introductory astronomy course provides an excellent vehicle to explore applications of the weak interaction from elementary particle physics. When the topic of the proton-proton cycle appears in my astronomy course, I teach the rules of the weak interaction. In this way, the students not only understand the first step in the proton-proton cycle, but can write down the other three reactions where the weak interaction arises naturally in astronomy: neutronization, neutrino detection, and carbon-14 dating. This exercise encourages critical thinking as students need to apply conservation laws to arrive at the correct reactions.
The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental forces in the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. The other three forces are the gravitational, the electromagnetic, and strong forces. It is common today for astronomy texts to include a discussion of the four fundamental forces in nature and the goal to unify them into a...