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Stars as Laboratories for Fundamental Physics - MPP Theory Group

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Solar Neutrinos 343<br />

Fig. 10.1. Solar neutrino flux at Earth according to the Bahcall and<br />

Pinsonneault (1995) solar model. Upper panel: Continuum spectra in<br />

cm −2 s −1 MeV −1 , line spectra in cm −2 s −1 . Solid lines are the sources of<br />

dominating experimental significance. Above: Range of sensitivity of current<br />

and near-future solar neutrino experiments. Lower panel: Cumulative<br />

spectrum integrated from a given energy to infinity.<br />

The situation changed radically when the Kamiokande detector,<br />

originally built to search <strong>for</strong> proton decay, began in 1987 to me<strong>as</strong>ure<br />

the solar neutrino flux by virtue of the el<strong>as</strong>tic scattering reaction<br />

ν e + e − → e − + ν e which is detected by the Cherenkov light emitted by<br />

the kicked electron. With a threshold of about 9 MeV (later 7 MeV) it<br />

is exclusively sensitive to the boron neutrino flux. Because of its direc-

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