Hans Bethe Prize Recipient: Solar Neutrinos: from Darwin to Bethe to Superkamiokande and SNO
Abstract
The nineteenth century debate on the origin of stellar energy generation was resolved theoretically by Hans Bethe in the late 1930's and experimentally by Ray Davis in the 1970's. Kamiokande showed conclusively in the 1990s that the observed neutrinos come from the sun. Five beautiful experiments (chlorine, Kamiokande, GALLEX, SAGE, and Superkamiokande) have by now detected solar neutrinos, which have approximately the fluxes and energies predicted by calculations of nuclear fusion rates in standard solar models. Quantitative discrepancies between the standard model predictions (which assume that nothing happens to the neutrinos after they are created) and the measurements provide evidence that physics beyond the standard electroweak model may be manifested in solar neutrino experiments. Recent helioseismological measurements strengthen this inference. I will summarize the current status of <A HREF=http://www.sns.ias.edu/ jnb/>solar neutrino research</A> and review the prospects for discovering ``smoking-gun'' evidence for new physics with the Superkamiokande, SNO, and BOREXINO detectors.
- Publication:
-
APS April Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- April 1998
- Bibcode:
- 1998APS..APR..I104B