Solar Neutrino Research

Raymond Davis Jr., winner of the 2003 Nobel Proze in Physics. Member of BNL's Chemistry Department for more than 35 years has won the Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering contributions in astrophysics, in particular for the collection of solar neutrinos. Davis shares the prize with Masatoshi Koshiba of Japan, and Riccardo Giacconi of the U.S.

   Basic research on solar neutrinos has a long history in the Brookhaven Chemistry Department. This group initiated and operated the pioneering experiments that first uncovered the famous solar neutrino deficit using chemical detection of nuclear transformations induced by solar neutrinos using 615 tons of C2Cl4, and later participated in the GALLEX solar neutrino experiments in Gran Sasso, Italy where 30 tons of Gallium comprised the neutrino detector. The pioneering experiments conducted in the Homestake Mine, Lead, South Dakota, led to the awarding of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics to Raymond Davis, Jr., the founder of this group.

   Currently, the Solar Neutrino Research Group is a participant in the very successful solar neutrino detector, the Solar Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Sudbury, Ontario. The neutrino detection medium in SNO is 1000-metric-tons of D2O, which is valued at ~US$ 300  Million. The Solar Neutrino Group is also actively involved in R&D on proposed future neutrino experiments: (1) in the real-time detection of the lowest energy neutrinos from the Sun, in the Low Energy Neutrino Spectroscopy (LENS-Sol) Collaboration; (2) in the Brookhaven Physics Department project to develop a long-baseline muon-neutrino oscillation experiment, using an intense wide-band beam (~1-7 GeV) of muon-neutrinos from the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to be directed to an underground laboratory ~2000 km from BNL;(3) in two different international "Theta-13" collaborations that are planning future high-precision experiments at the ~1% level, to measure oscillation patterns of antineutrinos emanating from nuclear power reactors. For further information, see also here and here.

The Solar Neutrino Research Group is supported by the  the Low Energy Nuclear Physics Program of the Office of Nuclear Physics of the Office of Science  under contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

Learn more about the Solar Neutrino Research Group

Last Modified: January 31, 2008

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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