Speaker
Prof.
Hamish Robertson
(University of Washington)
Description
The flux of neutrinos from the sun's core depends on the rate at which the sun produces energy, a testable prediction as Ray Davis realized in the early 1960s. How that test turned out is one of the most dramatic stories in modern physics. With the hindsight of our current understanding, it is interesting to look back at the experimental and theoretical steps that led to the disclosure of new properties of nature. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) project was specifically designed to determine whether the `solar neutrino problem' lay in the astrophysics of stars or the properties of neutrinos. We will recall the basic ideas that led to SNO, how it was built, and what was learned.
Primary author
Prof.
Hamish Robertson
(University of Washington)
