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Svoboda's Sun in neutrino light
B. Svoboda's Solar image using neutrinos.

Solar Neutrinos at SuperK

Neutrinos are created in the core of the sun durring the process of fusion. Since neutrinos interact very rarely with other matter they do not loose the information of what is happening in the solar core and are thus very good probe of this otherwise unreachable volume.

However, starting from the early work of R. Davis and his Cl experiment in the Homestake mine, there has been a significantly lower flux measured than theory predicts. This is the so called ``Solar Neutrino Problem''. Not only is the overall flux lower, but the supression is energy dependent. While changing the solar model with in realistic bounds can not explain the measured deficit, neutrino oscilations can.

Super-Kamiokande brings to this problem the ability to observe solar model independent evidence of neutrino oscillation through looking at changes in energy spectrum and flux over time periods of a day and a year, thus probing oscilation lengths on the order of Earth's diameter and one astronomical unit, respectively.

SuperK's first results on the solar neutrino problem have been submitted to PRL and are available either as a LANL preprint or from SuperK's publications page.


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