Solar Neutrinos

Raymond Davis, Jr., is the Noble Laureate in Physics, 2002.

This book depicts a research field, solar neutrinos, that is poised to answer some of the fundamental questions of twentieth-century physics and astronomy. It is of interest to students as well as active researchers in the scientific areas in physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and engineering.A variety of evolutionary sequences of models for the solar interior has been computed, corresponding to variations in input data, to obtain some idea of the uncertainties involved in predicting a solar neutrino flux. It is concluded that the neutrino flux can be estimated to within a factor of 2, the primary uncertainty being the initial homogeneous solar composition; detailed results are given. With a preferred value of the heavy-element-to-hydrogen ratio Z/X = 0.028, the helium content necessary to fit a model to the observed solar luminosity is found to be Y = 0.27.