![]() ![]() ![]() At the time, it was unknown if there was an error with the experiment or with the calculations, or if Bahcall and Davis did not account for all variables, but this discrepancy gave birth to what became known as the solar neutrino problem.ĭavis and Bahcall continued their work to understand where they may have gone wrong or what they were missing, along with other astrophysicists who also did their own research on the subject. ![]() To their surprise, the experimental value of the solar neutrinos present was less than 20% of the theoretical value Bahcall calculated. The entire experiment lasted several years as it was able to detect only a few chlorine to argon conversions each day, and the first results were not yielded by the team until 1968. By conducting the experiment deep underground, Bahcall and Davis were able to avoid cosmic ray interactions which could affect the process and results. The process was conducted very far underground, hence the decision to conduct the experiment in Homestake as the town was home to the Homestake Gold Mine. Davis developed the idea of taking hundreds of thousands of liters of perchloroethylene, a chemical compound made up of carbon and chlorine, and searching for neutrinos using a chlorine-argon detector. Once the theoretical value was determined, the astrophysicists began pursuing experimental confirmation. Using his model, Bahcall was able to calculate the number of neutrinos expected to arrive at Earth from the Sun. Bahcall, using a solar model he developed, came to the conclusion that the most effective way to study solar neutrinos would be via the chlorine-argon reaction. The experiment, known as the Homestake experiment, named after the town in which it was conducted (Homestake, South Dakota), aimed to count the solar neutrinos arriving at Earth. This splendid theory lent great credibility to the hypothesis that the neutrino is created simultaneously with the electron every time a nucleus disintegrates through beta decay.The timeline of solar neutrinos and their discovery dates back to the 1960s, beginning with the two astrophysicists John N. The neutrino is very reluctant to react with its environment. The neutrino is a participant in processes involving theĪ neutrino is a sub-atomic particle that interacts weakly with matter and travels at a speed that is essentially the speed of light. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2002 - Presentation Speech The most common particle in the universe, the neutrino, is created in huge quantities during these reactions. Solving the Mystery of the Missing Neutrinos The simplest model that fits all the neutrino data implies that the mass of the electron neutrino is about 100 million times smaller than the mass of the electron. The neutrino is an elementary particle, which was postulated in 1930 by Wolfgang The neutrino is an obscure particle with no electric charge and which only interacts with matter via the weak nuclear force. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1979 - Presentation Speechįor example, a positively charged pion decaying to a positively charged muon and a muon neutrino is the mirror process of a negatively charged pion decaying to a negatively charged muon and a muon antineutrino.Ī Non-Technical Explanation of Flavo(u)r Physics « Imaginary Potential that the electron and the neutrino belong to the same family of particles the neutrino is the electron's little brother. ![]()
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