Solar Neutrinos—From Puzzle to Paradox

Abstract

The solar neutrino puzzle is deepening into a paradox that refutes the basic logic of the reaction chain that powers the sun by the fusion of protons into heavy elements. Experiments now reveal a serious anomaly in the relative neutrino fluxes from the different steps in the chain. Neutrinos from boron-8 at the end of the chain are seen but hardly any are seen from beryllium-7, without which the observed boron-8 cannot be made. The only apparent way to avoid a paradoxical "missing link" in the sun's energy chain is a nonzero neutrino mass, an idea that can be tested in future experiments.

Robust signatures of solar neutrino oscillation solutions

“…[16] [8] of S 17 (0). The reduction of this theoretical error pushes the previously marginally allowed SMA and Just So 2 solutions (for these somewhat unfamiliar solutions see the original discovery papers [31] and ref. [13]) over the edge (beyond the 3σ allowed region).…”

Science and technology of Borexino: a real-time detector for low energy solar neutrinos

“…The signal rates at low and high energies are thus internally inconsistent with the sequential logic of energy production in the Sun, with or without invoking modification of the SSM. 14,15,16 This is referred to as the 7 Be-8 B problem.…”

Phenomenology of neutrino oscillations

“…(ii) Averaging over t R (as we have done) may be partially justified since the result may be effectively the same for energy-integrated rates. However, this argument does not apply for Borexino [15], where the monochromatic Be 7 neutrino line spectrum will be detected.…”

“…Therefore great expetations have been raised by the SNO detector [14] which will soon give the first results. Another exciting avenue will open when Borexino [15] starts its operation, since it is the first detector zeroing in on the monochromatic ν line from the Be 7 decay in the sun.…”

“…ν j entering the earth), we can calculate ρ (N ) at the end of the N th slab using Eq. (15). The probability of observing ν β at the end of the N th slab is…”