Review of Solar Neutrino Experiments

TL;DR

This review summarizes solar neutrino experiments and analyses, showing evidence of neutrino flavor change and confirming solar model predictions, while highlighting future research directions for improved measurements.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of experimental constraints on solar neutrino mixing parameters and discusses the implications of global analyses for neutrino oscillation models.

Findings

Electron neutrinos change to other active flavors en route to Earth.

Total solar neutrino flux agrees with solar model predictions.

Future experiments aim for more precise mixing parameter measurements.

Abstract

This paper reviews the constraints on the solar neutrino mixing parameters with data collected by the Homestake, SAGE, GALLEX, Kamiokande, SuperKamiokande, and SNO experiments. An emphasis will be given to the global solar neutrino analyses in terms of matter-enhanced oscillation of two active flavors. The results to-date, including both solar model dependent and independent measurements, indicate that electron neutrinos are changing to other active types on route to the Earth from the Sun. The total flux of solar neutrinos is found to be in very good agreement with solar model calculations. Future measurements will focus on greater accuracy for mixing parameters and on better sensitivity to low neutrino energies.