Lithium Experiment in the Interplay of Solar and Neutrino Physics

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential of lithium-based detectors to measure solar neutrinos from the CNO cycle, which could confirm the cycle's existence and improve understanding of solar interior processes.

Contribution

It proposes using lithium radiochemical detectors to directly detect CNO cycle neutrinos, providing experimental confirmation and advancing solar neutrino research.

Findings

Lithium detectors can potentially distinguish 13N- and 15O-neutrino fluxes.

Detection of CNO neutrinos would confirm the CNO cycle's role in solar energy.

The method could improve the precision of solar neutrino flux measurements.

Abstract

In a future study of solar neutrinos a special emphasis should be given to the measurement of the fluxes of neutrinos generated in CNO cycle, because this is a direct way to measure with record uncertainty - less than 1% the contribution to the solar luminosity of a pp-chain of reactions. Combined with the luminosity constraint method suggested by M. Spiro and D. Vignaud this will put the foundation for the further substantial progress in the study of neutrinos and thermonuclear reactions in the interior of the Sun. So far the hypothesis of CNO cycle hasn't found any experimental confirmation. A lithium-based radiochemical detector has a potential to detect neutrinos from CNO cycle what will be a direct proof of its existence. This will be a stringent test of the theory of stellar evolution and will complete a long-standing goal of recording the neutrino spectrum of the Sun. The energy generated in the Sun and neutrino oscillation parameters are inherently interconnected in this research. The analysis shows that although a lithium detector is a radiochemical one, principally it is possible to find separately the fluxes of 13N- and 15O-neutrinos from the total neutrino capture rate measured by this detector.