The Sun and Neutrino Physics
Is this project an undergraduate, graduate, or faculty project?
Undergraduate
individual
What campus are you from?
Daytona Beach
Authors' Class Standing
Junior
Lead Presenter's Name
Emily Gunger
Faculty Mentor Name
Heidi Nykyri
Abstract
The Sun produces neutrinos due to nuclear fusion in its core via the PP chain. These electron neutrinos will travel to the Earth and have a probability of oscillating into two of the three known flavors; tau neutrino or muon neutrino. Neutrinos are fermions (spin one-half particles) and are electrically neutral. Neutrinos only interact via gravity and the weak force, which means they are great messengers. Would neutrino flux look different based on the type of star that emits neutrinos? What could neutrinos tell us about different stars in a far-away galaxy?
Student Research Symposium. Project for Dr. Nykyri’s Space Weather (PS214) class.
Type of gathered information
- What a neutrino is
- How they oscillate and probability of oscillation
- Number of neutrinos produced in the sun for a given PP reaction and how many times that occurs per second
- Number of neutrinos produced from supernovae explosion and how they are assumed to travel
- Potential reaction of neutrinos on the way to Earth
- How large a star has to be to produce a theoretical amount of neutrinos
Potential Sources
- “Nobel Lecture: A half-century with solar neutrinos” Raymond Davis, Jr. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA and Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA. 8 August 2003.
- “The Neutrino” Dr. Frederick Reines and Dr. Clyde L. Cowan. Nature, University of California, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. 1 September 1956.
- “Solving the Solar Neutrino Problem” Arthur B. McDonald, Joshua R. Klein, and David L. Wark. 2006.
- “Introduction to the Physics of Massive Neutrinos I” Concha Gonzalez-Garcia, Fermilab, August 2019.
- “Neutrino Physics” Manuel Silva. University of Wisconsin, Bootcamp 2021. June 10, 2021.
- “Ultrahigh-Energy Neutrino Interactions” Raj Gandhi, Chris Quigg, Mary Hall Reno, Ina Sarcevic. Astroparticle Physics. 1 February 2008.
- “Neutrino tomography of the Earth” A. Donini, S. Palomares-Ruiz, J. Salvado. arXiv:1803.05901v1. 15 March 2018.
Did this research project receive funding support from the Office of Undergraduate Research.
No
The Sun and Neutrino Physics
The Sun produces neutrinos due to nuclear fusion in its core via the PP chain. These electron neutrinos will travel to the Earth and have a probability of oscillating into two of the three known flavors; tau neutrino or muon neutrino. Neutrinos are fermions (spin one-half particles) and are electrically neutral. Neutrinos only interact via gravity and the weak force, which means they are great messengers. Would neutrino flux look different based on the type of star that emits neutrinos? What could neutrinos tell us about different stars in a far-away galaxy?
Student Research Symposium. Project for Dr. Nykyri’s Space Weather (PS214) class.
Type of gathered information
- What a neutrino is
- How they oscillate and probability of oscillation
- Number of neutrinos produced in the sun for a given PP reaction and how many times that occurs per second
- Number of neutrinos produced from supernovae explosion and how they are assumed to travel
- Potential reaction of neutrinos on the way to Earth
- How large a star has to be to produce a theoretical amount of neutrinos
Potential Sources
- “Nobel Lecture: A half-century with solar neutrinos” Raymond Davis, Jr. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA and Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA. 8 August 2003.
- “The Neutrino” Dr. Frederick Reines and Dr. Clyde L. Cowan. Nature, University of California, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. 1 September 1956.
- “Solving the Solar Neutrino Problem” Arthur B. McDonald, Joshua R. Klein, and David L. Wark. 2006.
- “Introduction to the Physics of Massive Neutrinos I” Concha Gonzalez-Garcia, Fermilab, August 2019.
- “Neutrino Physics” Manuel Silva. University of Wisconsin, Bootcamp 2021. June 10, 2021.
- “Ultrahigh-Energy Neutrino Interactions” Raj Gandhi, Chris Quigg, Mary Hall Reno, Ina Sarcevic. Astroparticle Physics. 1 February 2008.
- “Neutrino tomography of the Earth” A. Donini, S. Palomares-Ruiz, J. Salvado. arXiv:1803.05901v1. 15 March 2018.