1 / 8

Solar Neutrinos and the SNO Experiment

Solar Neutrinos and the SNO Experiment. JJ Anthony April 11, 2006 Astronomy 007. What are Neutrinos?. The neutrino was first invented in order to save the laws of conservation of energy and momentum from falsification.

apu
Download Presentation

Solar Neutrinos and the SNO Experiment

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Solar Neutrinos and the SNO Experiment JJ Anthony April 11, 2006 Astronomy 007

  2. What are Neutrinos? • The neutrino was first invented in order to save the laws of conservation of energy and momentum from falsification. • Around 1930, it was found that some energy and momentum went missing in each Beta decay. • The energy carried away by the electron was to match the energy released by the atom in the process –BUT IT DIDN’T! • Wolfgang Pauli tried to explain this by proposing that an invisible particle was emitted along with the electron. • The particle that carried away the missing energy and momentum was named neutrino.

  3. What are Solar Neutrinos? • The sun shines from nuclear fusion in its core. • During the fusion on the sun, two protons have to be converted into neutrons through beta decays. • In each beta decay, a neutrino is emitted! • 2 x 1038 neutrinos hit Earth every second!

  4. The Solar Neutrino Problem • “The solar neutrino problem currently provides one of the most compelling experimental signatures for the physics beyond the standard model.” • Paul Langacker and Naoya Hata • Neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect! • Some ways to detect them are: • If they bounce off an electron • If they bounce off a nucleus • If they interact with an electron or a nucleus • If they reverse beta decay on a nucleus • If a "reverse fusion" takes place • when a neutrino strikes a deuterium nucleus, splitting it up into two protons.

  5. Tools for Solving • The SNU: solar neutrino unit • equal to one interaction per second per 10^36 atoms • Cherenkov detector • a large acrylic tank lined with photomultiplier tubes and filled with 1000 tons of water

  6. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Experiment The measurement of the Neutral Current rate and the Charged Current rate was the goal of this process.

  7. Conclusions of the SNO experiment (After all of the number crunching) • There ARE non-electron neutrinos coming from the sun in amounts sufficient to eliminate the solar neutrino problem. • Since the predictions were proven by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, the solar neutrino problem was solved: • Neutrinos emitted by the sun do undergo fundamental changes into other types of neutrinos as they travel to the Earth.

  8. Sources Used • http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-solar.html#_Toc430357865 • http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~jpf/Astro228Pres/The_SNO_Experiment.html • http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/9705/9705339.pdf

More Related