Sun-Planet Connection

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Sun-Planet Connection IMPRS Solar System School Retreat, Apr 29 – May 2, 2013 Sun-planet connection Y. Narita Space Research Institute Austrian Academy of Sciences Chap. 1 Plasma Chap. 2 Sun Chap. 3 Earth Chap. 4 Planets 1 Ionization of atomic hydrogen gas H → p + e- 1AU corona 13.6 eV = 158 000 K Other ionization sources? 2 Magnetohydrodynamics Flow velocity evolution Simplified pressure balance Magnetic field evolution 3 Pressure balance realizations (a) Hydrostatic equilibrium (b) Hydromagnetic equilibrium Φ grav p pdyn mag pth (c ) Rotating body (d) Radiative transfer Φ Φgrav grav prad 4 Energy conversion processes Eth shock wave cooling solar wind E heating kin Erad reconnection contraction T-tauri stars dynamo Eddinton luminosity waves and E turbulence mag Egrv 5 Heat energy transport Caveat! Additional energy loss due to neurtino escape 6 Exercise Is the electrical conductivity in interplanetary plasma (at 1 AU) better than that of iron Fe (107 Ω-1 m-1)? How many meaningful units are there for expressing pressure? 7 Solution Is the electrical conductivity in interplanetary plasma (at 1 AU) better than that of iron Fe (107 Ω-1 m-1)? -1 2 -3 The resistivity formula (η=σ = me νc / ne e ) using ne= 10 cm -7 6 -1 -1 and νc = 10 Hz (Te = 0.3 MK) yields σ = 10 Ω m . It is less conductive than iron but is almost on the same order. How many meaningful units are there for expressing pressure? Pa (pascal) N/m2 (force per area) J/m3 (energy density) kg ms-1 / m2 s (momentum flux) 8 Chap. 2 Sun Heat production Solar luminosity from gravitational contraction from nuclear fusion Is the core hot enough for fusion? … Yes but only possible through tunnel effect Reaction process (pp-chain, CNO-cycle) neutrinos heat 9 Heat transfer to the surface F Frad cnv Lⵙ Core Radiative transport Convective transport Surface Corona 15 MK 6000K 1 MK ν Tachocline Chromosphere Energy conversion Eth → Ekin →Emag Model construction ● Spherical symmetry ● Hydrostatic equilibrium ● Equation of state? 10 Excursion to astrophysics Main sequence stars Low-mass (M) red dwarf, 0.1-0.5 Mⵙ Sun-like (G) 0.5-1.5 Mⵙ core - conv High-mass (O,B) 1.5 Mⵙ or higher core - rad - conv core+conv - rad High-mass stars live much shorter although they have more fuel. Why? 11 Convection zone slow Buoyancy + Coriolis effect Taylor column Twisting magnetic field lines (“alpha”) v fast Differential rotation B Stretching field lines (“Omega”) Rad B v Cnv Cause of 11-year (or 22-year) perioditicy? 12 Corona Proposed heating mechanisms: shock waves, nanoflares, Alfven waves, ... Thermal expansion of coronal gas → solar wind (Eth → Ekin) Slice along the rot axis Slice cutting the rot axis Thomson scattering Vsw = cs 10Rⵙ 13 Heliosphere 14 Exercise 1. Estimate the lifetime of the sun. 2. Is the number density of solar neutrino coming to Earth higher than 1 cm-3? 15 Solution 1. Estimate the lifetime of the sun. -13 (Fuel amount) = (Mⵙ / mp) [protons] x 26/4 [MeV] x 1.6 x 10 [J/MeV] 26 (Consumption rate) = Lⵙ = 4 x 10 [J/s] (Lifetime) = (Fuel) / (Consumption) = 2.9 x 1018 [s] = 0.9 x 1011 [yr] 2. Is the number density of solar neutrino coming to Earth higher than 1 cm-3? Use solar constant and reaction rate (2 neutrinos per 26 MeV). Neutrino number flux is F = 1.36 x 103 [J/m2s] / (13 [MeV] x 1.6 x 10-13 [J/MeV]) = 6.5 x 1010 [particles / cm2s] Number density (on using the light speed c) is n = F/c = 2.18 x 106 [particles m-3] = 2.18 [particles cm-3]. It is slightly more than one particle per cm3. 16 Chap. 3 Earth Earth's magnetic field boundary Time scale of reaction against solar wind change? 17 Magnetosphere Equlibrium picture Solar wind plasma 10 RE ● How does the tail form? - Friction model vs. reconnection model ● Where is the pressure balance applicable? And what kind of pressure? 18 Magnetic field transport Friction model (Axford & Hines, 1961) v with shear v B B Reconnection model (Dungey, 1961) v v Bearth B reconnected Bsun 19 Magnetospheric dynamics Geomagnetic storm Auroral substorm jet compression reconnection Phenomenon with sudden increase Phenomenon with the southward direction of solar wind pressure (CME, CIR) of interplanetary magnetic field Dayside compression ~ minutes Dayside reconnection ~ minutes Nightside compression ~ hours Tail reconnection ~ 40 minutes after dayside reconnection Recovery ~ days Recovery ~ hours 20 Exercise 1. What can be used as a proxy of past Earth climate and solar activity on the time scale from 1000 to 10,000 years? Earth climate … Solar activity … 2. Draw footprint motion of Earth's magnetic field line in the arctic region. Friction model Reconnection model 12h 12h 18h 6h 18h 6h 0h 0h viewed from north pole axis to the ionosphere 21 Solution 1. What can be used as a proxy of past Earth climate and solar activity on the time scale from 1000 to 10,000 years? Earth climate … Oxygen 18 isotope abundance in stalagmite Solar activity … Carbon 14 isotope abundance in tree ring (Neff et al., Nature, 411, 290, 2001) 2. Draw footprint motion of Earth's magnetic field line in the arctic region. Friction model Reconnection model 12h 12h dayside reconnection friction at flank of magnetopause 18h 6h 18h 6h 0h 0h tail reconnection viewed from north pole axis to the ionosphere 22 Chap. 4 Planets Obstacle types Magnetized body Umagnetized body With atmosphere Earth Venus, Mars Gas giants (J, S) Titan, Enceladus Icy planets (U, N) Ganymede Without atmosphere Mercury Earth moon 23 Dipole axis and magnetosphere size Merc Earth 2 R pl 10 Rpl J, S U, N 25 R 70 Rpl (J), 20 Rpl (S) pl 24 Mercury Rocky planets Induced magnetosphere Venus 2 Rpl No inosophere Earth but substorm- like events Mars 1%-10% Rpl No planetary magnetic field 10 Rpl Substorm, aurora 1%-10% Rpl Crustal magnetic field 25 Gas giants (Jup,Sat) Centrifugal force Liquid, metalic hydrogen envelope? 10-hour rotation Satellites as plasma source (Io, Enceladus) Aurora, radio wave, synchrotron emission 26 Icy planets (Ura, Nep) pole-on pole-off solar wind solar wind Planet formation beyond ice limit Large tilt angle → pole-on magnetosphere Aurora, radio wave emission 27.
Recommended publications
  • Radiochemical Solar Neutrino Experiments, "Successful and Otherwise"
    BNL-81686-2008-CP Radiochemical Solar Neutrino Experiments, "Successful and Otherwise" R. L. Hahn Presented at the Proceedings of the Neutrino-2008 Conference Christchurch, New Zealand May 25 - 31, 2008 September 2008 Chemistry Department Brookhaven National Laboratory P.O. Box 5000 Upton, NY 11973-5000 www.bnl.gov Notice: This manuscript has been authored by employees of Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The publisher by accepting the manuscript for publication acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. This preprint is intended for publication in a journal or proceedings. Since changes may be made before publication, it may not be cited or reproduced without the author’s permission. DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or any third party’s use or the results of such use of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof or its contractors or subcontractors.
    [Show full text]
  • Helioseismology of the Tachocline
    HISTORY OF SOLAR ACTIVITY RECORDED IN POLAR ICE Helioseismology of the Tachocline arkus Roth $iepenheuer-Institut für Sonnen%hysi" History of Solar Acti(ity Reco!)e) in Polar Ice Düben)orf, ,-.,,./0,1 HISTORY OF Theoretical Kno2ledge abo#t SOLAR ACTIVITY RECORDED IN the Solar Interio! POLAR ICE What is the structure of the Sun? Theo!y of the inte!nal st!#ct#!e of the sta!s is *ase) on the f#n)amental %!inci%les of %hysics: Energy conservation, Mass conservation, Momentum conservation P!essu!e an) gra(ity a!e in *alance4 hy)!ostatic e5#ili*!i#m 6 the Sun is stable A theo!etical mo)el of the S#n can *e *#ilt on these %hysical la2s. Is there a possibility to „look inside“ the Sun? HISTORY OF SOLAR ACTIVITY RECORDED IN Oscillations in the Sun and the Sta!s POLAR ICE The Sun and the stars exhibit resonance oscillations! Excitation Mechanism: Small perturbations of the equilibrium lead to oscillations Origin: Granulation (turbulences) that generate sound waves, i.e. pressure perturbations (430.5 nm; courtesy to KIS -) 5 Mm HISTORY OF SOLAR ACTIVITY RECORDED IN Oscillations in the Sun and the Sta!s POLAR ICE The Sun and the stars exhibit resonance oscillations! Excitation Mechanism: Small perturbations of the equilibrium lead to oscillations Origin: Granulation (turbulences) that generate sound waves, i.e. pressure perturbations The superposition of sound waves lead to interferences: amplifications or annihilations. Sun and stars act as resonators ? Fundamental mode and higher harmonics are possible Roth, 2004, SuW 8, 24 10 million10 oscillations,
    [Show full text]
  • On a Transition from Solar-Like Coronae to Rotation-Dominated Jovian-Like
    On a transition from solar-like coronae to rotation-dominated jovian-like magnetospheres in ultracool main-sequence stars Carolus J. Schrijver Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, 3251 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [email protected] ABSTRACT For main-sequence stars beyond spectral type M5 the characteristics of magnetic activity common to warmer solar-like stars change into the brown-dwarf domain: the surface magnetic field becomes more dipolar and the evolution of the field patterns slows, the photospheric plasma is increasingly neutral and decoupled from the magnetic field, chromospheric and coronal emissions weaken markedly, and the efficiency of rotational braking rapidly decreases. Yet, radio emission persists, and has been argued to be dominated by electron-cyclotron maser emission instead of the gyrosynchrotron emission from warmer stars. These properties may signal a transition in the stellar extended atmosphere. Stars warmer than about M5 have a solar-like corona and wind-sustained heliosphere in which the atmospheric activity is powered by convective motions that move the magnetic field. Stars cooler than early-L, in contrast, may have a jovian- like rotation-dominated magnetosphere powered by the star’s rotation in a scaled-up analog of the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. A dimensional scaling relationship for rotation-dominated magnetospheres by Fan et al. (1982) is consistent with this hypothesis. Subject headings: stars: magnetic fields — stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs — stars: late-type — planets and satellites: general arXiv:0905.1354v1 [astro-ph.SR] 8 May 2009 1. Introduction Main sequence stars have a convective envelope around a radiative core from about spectral type A2 (with an effective temperature of Teff ≈ 9000 K) to about M3 (Teff ≈ 3200 K).
    [Show full text]
  • Perspective Helioseismology
    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 96, pp. 5356–5359, May 1999 Perspective Helioseismology: Probing the interior of a star P. Demarque* and D. B. Guenther† *Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8101; and †Department of Astronomy and Physics, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3C3 Helioseismology offers, for the first time, an opportunity to probe in detail the deep interior of a star (our Sun). The results will have a profound impact on our understanding not only of the solar interior, but also neutrino physics, stellar evolution theory, and stellar population studies in astrophysics. In 1962, Leighton, Noyes and Simon (1) discovered patches of in the radial eigenfunction. In general low-l modes penetrate the Sun’s surface moving up and down, with a velocity of the more deeply inside the Sun: that is, have deeper inner turning order of 15 cmzs21 (in a background noise of 330 mzs21!), with radii than higher l-valued p-modes. It is this property that gives periods near 5 minutes. Termed the ‘‘5-minute oscillation,’’ the p-modes remarkable diagnostic power for probing layers of motions were originally believed to be local in character and different depth in the solar interior. somehow related to turbulent convection in the solar atmo- The cut-away illustration of the solar interior (Fig. 2 Left) sphere. A few years later, Ulrich (2) and, independently, shows the region in which p-modes propagate. Linearized Leibacher and Stein (3) suggested that the phenomenon is theory predicts (2, 4) a characteristic pattern of the depen- global and that the observed oscillations are the manifestation dence of the eigenfrequencies on horizontal wavelength.
    [Show full text]
  • Multi-Spacecraft Analysis of the Solar Coronal Plasma
    Multi-spacecraft analysis of the solar coronal plasma Von der Fakultät für Elektrotechnik, Informationstechnik, Physik der Technischen Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig zur Erlangung des Grades einer Doktorin der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.) genehmigte Dissertation von Iulia Ana Maria Chifu aus Bukarest, Rumänien eingereicht am: 11.02.2015 Disputation am: 07.05.2015 1. Referent: Prof. Dr. Sami K. Solanki 2. Referent: Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Glassmeier Druckjahr: 2016 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Dissertation an der Technischen Universität Braunschweig, Fakultät für Elektrotechnik, Informationstechnik, Physik ISBN uni-edition GmbH 2016 http://www.uni-edition.de © Iulia Ana Maria Chifu This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License Printed in Germany Vorveröffentlichung der Dissertation Teilergebnisse aus dieser Arbeit wurden mit Genehmigung der Fakultät für Elektrotech- nik, Informationstechnik, Physik, vertreten durch den Mentor der Arbeit, in folgenden Beiträgen vorab veröffentlicht: Publikationen • Mierla, M., Chifu, I., Inhester, B., Rodriguez, L., Zhukov, A., 2011, Low polarised emission from the core of coronal mass ejections, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 530, L1 • Chifu, I., Inhester, B., Mierla, M., Chifu, V., Wiegelmann, T., 2012, First 4D Recon- struction of an Eruptive Prominence
    [Show full text]
  • Quiz 1 Feedback! Queries & Concerns Earth's Magnetic Field/Shield Quiz
    Quiz 1 Feedback! Queries & Concerns • There is no protection on Earth from solar radiation. 1. What usually happens to energetic charged particles from the Sun when they approach the Earth? ! – Fortunately, this is not true! The Earths atmosphere absorbs high- energy electromagnetic radiation (such as X-rays from solar flares). !There is a continual flow of particles from the outer layers As for the energetic charged particles flowing from the Sun, the of the Sun, sometimes called the solar wind. We are Earths magnetic field provides a shield against them. Instead of protected from them by the Earths magnetic field, traveling straight through and hitting the Earth, they are redirected which deflects them away (changes their direction) so to travel along the field lines that bend around the Earth. that they dont hit the Earth head-on. Some of the particles – The ongoing, relatively thin flow of particles from the Sun is called travel along the field lines to the Earths magnetic poles, the solar wind. CMEs are rare, occasional events where a lot of where they collide with molecules in the atmosphere, mass is expelled in a short period of time. causing the Northern and Southern lights, the aurorae. – Some particles follow the field lines to the Earths magnetic poles; (Aside: The light is produced when electrons within the when they hit the upper atmosphere in the polar regions, they molecules are knocked up to higher energy states, and produce a glow we call the Northern/Southern Lights or aurorae. then fall back down, emitting photons of light.)! – Other particles are trapped in doughnut-shaped regions called the Van Allen belts.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sun and the Solar Corona
    SPACE PHYSICS ADVANCED STUDY OPTION HANDOUT The sun and the solar corona Introduction The Sun of our solar system is a typical star of intermediate size and luminosity. Its radius is about 696000 km, and it rotates with a period that increases with latitude from 25 days at the equator to 36 days at poles. For practical reasons, the period is often taken to be 27 days. Its mass is about 2 x 1030 kg, consisting mainly of hydrogen (90%) and helium (10%). The Sun emits radio waves, X-rays, and energetic particles in addition to visible light. The total energy output, solar constant, is about 3.8 x 1033 ergs/sec. For further details (and more accurate figures), see the table below. THE SOLAR INTERIOR VISIBLE SURFACE OF SUN: PHOTOSPHERE CORE: THERMONUCLEAR ENGINE RADIATIVE ZONE CONVECTIVE ZONE SCHEMATIC CONVECTION CELLS Figure 1: Schematic representation of the regions in the interior of the Sun. Physical characteristics Photospheric composition Property Value Element % mass % number Diameter 1,392,530 km Hydrogen 73.46 92.1 Radius 696,265 km Helium 24.85 7.8 Volume 1.41 x 1018 m3 Oxygen 0.77 Mass 1.9891 x 1030 kg Carbon 0.29 Solar radiation (entire Sun) 3.83 x 1023 kW Iron 0.16 Solar radiation per unit area 6.29 x 104 kW m-2 Neon 0.12 0.1 on the photosphere Solar radiation at the top of 1,368 W m-2 Nitrogen 0.09 the Earth's atmosphere Mean distance from Earth 149.60 x 106 km Silicon 0.07 Mean distance from Earth (in 214.86 Magnesium 0.05 units of solar radii) In the interior of the Sun, at the centre, nuclear reactions provide the Sun's energy.
    [Show full text]
  • Dynamics of the Fast Solar Tachocline
    A&A 389, 629–640 (2002) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20020586 & c ESO 2002 Astrophysics Dynamics of the fast solar tachocline I. Dipolar field E. Forg´acs-Dajka1 and K. Petrovay1,2 1 E¨otv¨os University, Department of Astronomy, Budapest, Pf. 32, 1518 Hungary 2 Instute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4030, USA Received 15 January 2002 / Accepted 16 April 2002 Abstract. One possible scenario for the origin of the solar tachocline, known as the “fast tachocline”, assumes that the turbulent diffusivity exceeds η ∼> 109 cm2 s−1. In this case the dynamics will be governed by the dynamo- generated oscillatory magnetic field on relatively short timescales. Here, for the first time, we present detailed numerical models for the fast solar tachocline with all components of the magnetic field calculated explicitly, assuming axial symmetry and a constant turbulent diffusivity η and viscosity ν. We find that a sufficiently strong oscillatory poloidal field with dipolar latitude dependence at the tachocline–convective zone boundary is able to confine the tachocline. Exploring the three-dimensional parameter space defined by the viscosity in the range log ν = 9–11, the magnetic Prandtl number in the range Prm =0.1−10, and the meridional flow amplitude −1 (−3to+3cms ), we also find that the confining field strength Bconf, necessary to reproduce the observed thickness of the tachocline, increases with viscosity ν, with magnetic Prandtl number ν/η, and with equatorward 3 4 meridional flow speed. Nevertheless, the resulting Bconf values remain quite reasonable, in the range 10 −10 G, for all parameter combinations considered here.
    [Show full text]
  • A Half-Century with Solar Neutrinos*
    REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS, VOLUME 75, JULY 2003 Nobel Lecture: A half-century with solar neutrinos* Raymond Davis, Jr. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA and Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA (Published 8 August 2003) Neutrinos are neutral, nearly massless particles that neutrino physics was a field that was wide open to ex- move at nearly the speed of light and easily pass through ploration: ‘‘Not everyone would be willing to say that he matter. Wolfgang Pauli (1945 Nobel Laureate in Physics) believes in the existence of the neutrino, but it is safe to postulated the existence of the neutrino in 1930 as a way say that there is hardly one of us who is not served by of carrying away missing energy, momentum, and spin in the neutrino hypothesis as an aid in thinking about the beta decay. In 1933, Enrico Fermi (1938 Nobel Laureate beta-decay hypothesis.’’ Neutrinos also turned out to be in Physics) named the neutrino (‘‘little neutral one’’ in suitable for applying my background in physical chemis- Italian) and incorporated it into his theory of beta decay. try. So, how lucky I was to land at Brookhaven, where I The Sun derives its energy from fusion reactions in was encouraged to do exactly what I wanted and get paid for it! Crane had quite an extensive discussion on which hydrogen is transformed into helium. Every time the use of recoil experiments to study neutrinos. I imme- four protons are turned into a helium nucleus, two neu- diately became interested in such experiments (Fig.
    [Show full text]
  • Resolving the Solar Neutrino Problem
    FEATURES Resolving the solar neutrino problem: Evidence for massive neutrinos in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Karsten M. Heeger for the SNO collaboration ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ The solar neutrino problem are not features of the Standard Model of particle physics. In or more than 30 years, experiments have detected neutrinos quantum mechanics, an initially pure flavor (e.g. electron) can Pproduced in the thermonuclear fusion reactions which power change as neutrinos propagate because the mass components that the Sun. These reactions fuse protons into helium and release neu­ made up that pure flavor get out of phase. The probability for trinos with an energy of up to 15 MeY. Data from these solar neutrino oscillations to occurmayeven be enhanced in the Sun in neutrino experiments were found to be incompatible with the an energy-dependent and resonant manner as neutrinos emerge predictions of solar models. More precisely, the flux ofneutrinos from the dense core of the Sun. This effect of matter-enhanced detected on Earthwas less than expected, and the relative intensi­ neutrino oscillations was suggested by Mikheyev, Smirnov, and ties ofthe sources ofneutrinos in the sun was incompatible with Wolfenstein (MSW) and is one of the most promising explana­ those predicted bysolar models. By the mid-1990's the data
    [Show full text]
  • Helioseismology, Solar Models and Solar Neutrinos
    Helioseismology, solar models and solar neutrinos G. Fiorentini Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit´adi Ferrara and INFN-Ferrara Via Paradiso 12, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy E-mail: fi[email protected] and B. Ricci Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit´adi Ferrara and INFN-Ferrara Via Paradiso 12, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT We review recent advances concerning helioseismology, solar models and solar neutrinos. Particularly we shall address the following points: i) helioseismic tests of recent SSMs; ii)the accuracy of the helioseismic determination of the sound speed near the solar center; iii)predictions of neutrino fluxes based on helioseismology, (almost) independent of SSMs; iv)helioseismic tests of exotic solar models. 1. Introduction Without any doubt, in the last few years helioseismology has changed the per- spective of standard solar models (SSM). Before the advent of helioseismic data a solar model had essentially three free parameters (initial helium and metal abundances, Yin and Zin, and the mixing length coefficient α) and produced three numbers that could be directly measured: the present radius, luminosity and heavy element content of the photosphere. In itself this was not a big accomplishment and confidence in the SSMs actually relied on the success of the stellar evoulution theory in describing many and more complex evolutionary phases in good agreement with observational data. arXiv:astro-ph/9905341v1 26 May 1999 Helioseismology has added important data on the solar structure which provide se- vere constraint and tests of SSM calculations. For instance, helioseismology accurately determines the depth of the convective zone Rb, the sound speed at the transition radius between the convective and radiative transfer cb, as well as the photospheric helium abundance Yph.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Solar Neutrino Research
    AN INTRODUCTION TO SOLAR NEUTRINO RESEARCH John Bahcall Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540 ABSTRACT In the ¯rst lecture, I describe the conflicts between the combined standard model predictions and the results of solar neutrino experi- ments. Here `combined standard model' means the minimal standard electroweak model plus a standard solar model. First, I show how the comparison between standard model predictions and the observed rates in the four pioneering experiments leads to three di®erent solar neutrino problems. Next, I summarize the stunning agreement be- tween the predictions of standard solar models and helioseismological measurements; this precise agreement suggests that future re¯nements of solar model physics are unlikely to a®ect signi¯cantly the three solar neutrino problems. Then, I describe the important recent analyses in which the neutrino fluxes are treated as free parameters, independent of any constraints from solar models. The disagreement that exists even without using any solar model constraints further reinforces the view that new physics may be required. The principal conclusion of the ¯rst lecture is that the minimal standard model is not consistent with the experimental results that have been reported for the pioneering solar neutrino experiments. In the second lecture, I discuss the possibilities for detecting \smok- ing gun" indications of departures from minimal standard electroweak theory. Examples of smoking guns are the distortion of the energy spectrum of recoil electrons produced by neutrino interactions, the de- pendence of the observed counting rate on the zenith angle of the sun (or, equivalently, the path through the earth to the detector), the ratio of the flux of neutrinos of all types to the flux of electron neutrinos 1 (neutral current to charged current ratio), and seasonal variations of the event rates (dependence upon the earth-sun distance).
    [Show full text]