History of Solar Neutrino Observations

TL;DR

This paper reviews the history of solar neutrino observations, highlighting key experiments like Davis, Kamiokande, and Super-Kamiokande, and explains how neutrino oscillations resolved the longstanding solar neutrino problem.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical overview of solar neutrino experiments and discusses the discovery of neutrino oscillations as the solution to the solar neutrino problem.

Findings

Neutrino oscillations explain the solar neutrino deficit.

Experiments confirmed solar model predictions when oscillations are considered.

First model-independent evidence of neutrino oscillations in 2001.

Abstract

The first solar neutrino experiment led by Raymond Davis Jr. showed a deficit of neutrinos relative to the solar model prediction, referred to as the "solar neutrino problem" since the 1970s. The Kamiokande experiment led by Masatoshi Koshiba successfully observed solar neutrinos, as first reported in 1989. The observed flux of solar neutrinos was almost half the prediction and confirmed the solar neutrino problem. This problem was not resolved for some time due to possible uncertainties in the solar model. In 2001, it was discovered that the solar neutrino problem is due to neutrino oscillations by comparing the Super-Kamiokande and Sudbury Neutrino Observatory results, which was the first model-independent comparison. Detailed studies of solar neutrino oscillations have since been performed, and the results of solar neutrino experiments are consistent with solar model predictions when the effect of neutrino oscillations are taken into account. In this article, the history of solar neutrino observations is reviewed with the contributions of Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande detailed.