Neutrino

• Fundamental particle that has:
  • No charge
  • Mass that is tiny relative to an electron
• Interact very weakly with other matter
• Difficult to detect
• Most abundant particle with mass in the universe

Solar Neutrino Problem

• Discrepancy between solar neutrinos measured and the predicted amount
  • Predicted from the Sun's luminosity
  • Much lower measured than predicted
• Neutrinos from the Sun have mixed quantum states so our detectors couldn't always detect them
  • We were looking for electron neutrinos
  • The neutrinos from the Sun could propagate into a mixture of electron, muon, and tau neutrinos
    • Neutrino oscillation

Astronomy Physics Particle