Tom named the product particle of this proton decay "Light Neutrino," meaning a tiny particle similar to a photon.

The Light Neutrino particle was so full of negative states that even Tom couldn't find a suitable detection method for a while.

Based on the extremely long lifespan of protons, the density of Light Neutrinos in the universe is even lower than that of magnetic monopoles. Since detecting magnetic monopoles is already so laborious, should he build hundreds of thousands of similar detectors to try and capture Light Neutrinos?

The scale of this project was simply too immense, to the point where Tom could hardly bear it.

A more crucial question was, how did other ordinary Electroweak Civilizations complete the detection of Light Neutrinos?

They couldn't have achieved it by building hundreds of thousands of detectors.

Even Tom didn't possess that industrial capability, so how could they?

This meant that there must be another detection method that could capture Light Neutrinos with a smaller investment of industrial resources.

But... what was this method?

Tom fell into prolonged contemplation. Not only Tom, but the Bluetoth scientists also joined in the task of thinking and exploration.

Time quietly passed, and Tom's various theoretical breakthroughs continued non-stop.

Small scientific theoretical branches under various grand theoretical frameworks, or breakthroughs at the mathematical level, etc., occurred almost every day.

They were like flesh and blood, attaching themselves bit by bit to the "skeleton" of the theoretical framework established by Tom, making this framework increasingly perfect.

But unfortunately, the aspect of proton decay remained a blank slate.

If the skeleton hadn't even been successfully built, how could there be flesh and blood?

Tom had no choice but to persevere day after day, and contemplate year after year.

Scientific research, especially fundamental theoretical research, is just like this. There are no shortcuts; one can only grind away bit by bit, and walk step by step. It relies on accumulation bit by bit to seek out that potentially existing breakthrough theory.

Under these circumstances, one day, an inconspicuous breakthrough caught Tom's attention.

This was not a breakthrough at the fundamental theoretical level; it should be considered a discovery in a branching field.

This breakthrough concerned the cores of gas giant planets. With the previous developments in various theories and mathematics, Tom completed the latest modeling work for the cores of gas giant planets, using more parameters and higher computational power to more realistically simulate the operational mechanism of gas giant cores, providing theoretical support for gas convection, changes in atmospheric elemental abundance, etc., in gas giant planets.

This meant that Tom now had the ability to make highly accurate predictions about the weather changes of gas giant planets.

This seemed completely unrelated to proton decay, but it gave Tom an inspiration.

He discovered that the cores of gas giant planets... seemed to possess certain potential to become research sites.

A typical gas giant planet, such as Jupiter in the solar system, is divided from outside to inside into four parts: the outer atmosphere, the supercritical fluid molecular hydrogen layer, the liquid metallic hydrogen layer, and the core.

The outer atmosphere is about a thousand kilometers thick; from outside to inside, pressure and temperature increase sharply until they are high enough for hydrogen to enter a supercritical fluid state.

The pressure in this region exceeds ten thousand times Earth's atmospheric pressure, and the temperature reaches several thousand degrees Celsius.

Further in, at a distance of about twenty thousand kilometers from the surface, the state of hydrogen changes once again.

They transform into liquid metallic hydrogen.

Because of the extremely high pressure and temperature, the electrons of hydrogen atoms have detached from the atomic nuclei, becoming free electrons and acquiring metal-like properties, hence being called metallic hydrogen.

The atmospheric pressure in this part is millions of times that of Earth, and the temperature reaches tens of thousands of degrees Celsius.

Further inward, to the innermost part of the gas giant planet, there is a solid core similar to Earth's, primarily composed of iron, nickel, and silicate rocks.

In the early stages of planetary formation, gas giant planets and rocky planets were actually not much different, merely one being larger and the other smaller.

A planet the size of Earth, with its mass, could only absorb as much gas as Earth's atmosphere, ultimately becoming a rocky planet.

But when the mass reached two or three times that of Earth, it could absorb more gas, eventually evolving into a gas giant planet similar to Jupiter.

The place Tom discovered, based on his simulation model, that might have potential as a research environment, was the liquid metallic hydrogen layer of gas giant planets.

The reason it has research potential is that Tom calculated that it might be possible to find key evidence of proton decay there!

This, of course, was not about finding evidence through Light Neutrino detection, but through another mode.

The liquid metallic hydrogen layer of gas giant planets has extremely high pressure and extremely high material density.

Proton decay causes protons to become Light Neutrinos and escape from the core of the gas giant planet.

The general process is similar to a person squeezing a spring with all their might, only for the spring to suddenly disappear.

Obviously, this person would suddenly fall to the ground, thereby causing a "vibration."

Under normal circumstances, this vibration is extremely minute, because the probability of proton decay is extremely, extremely low.

However, among the multiple gas giant planets in the Pegasus V342 star system, the smallest one has a mass of approximately 1.2 times that of Jupiter.

The pressure there is extremely high, similar to the person squeezing the "spring" using a great deal of force.

This mechanism would amplify the tiny vibrations caused by proton decay.

Tom estimated that its liquid metallic hydrogen layer has a total mass of about 0.9 times that of Jupiter, with approximately 10^{54} protons.

Existing evidence indicates that the lifespan of a proton is 10^{37} years.

Calculating this, on average, about 10^{17} protons decay each year within the liquid metallic layer of this gas giant planet, which averages to about 3.2 billion protons decaying per second.

In the liquid metallic hydrogen layer with extremely high pressure, protons themselves serve to support the material structure, like tiny springs.

Every second, about 3.2 billion of these tiny springs suddenly disappear. Correspondingly, the surrounding material abruptly loses support, which would cause that "vibration."

So... could the existence of proton decay be proven, and the process of proton decay be studied, by detecting this "vibration"?

Tom was not sure whether this detection path would actually work.

After all, 3.2 billion protons, though sounding like a lot, actually have a total mass even less than a virus.

Does the "vibration" caused by such a tiny mass loss really have the possibility of being observed?

Intuitively, Tom felt it was somewhat unlikely. But at this stage, there seemed to be no other way, so he might as well explore it and verify its feasibility.

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