Solar nuclear energy generation and the chlorine solar neutrino experiment

Abstract

The study of solar neutrinos may provide important insights into the physics of the central region of the Sun. Four solar neutrino experiments have confirmed the solar neutrino problem but do not clearly indicate whether solar physics, nuclear physics, or neutrino physics have to be improved to solve it. Nonlinear relations among the different neutrino fluxes are imposed by two coupled systems of differential equations governing the internal structure and time evolution of the Sun. We assume that the results of the four neutrino experiments are correct and are concerned not with the discrepancy between the average rate and the predicted rate, but with a possible time dependence of the argon production rate as revealed in the Homestake experiment over a time period of 20 years. Based on the subtlety of the solar neutrino problem we review here qualitatively the physical laws employed for understanding the internal solar structure and conjecture that the interlink between specific nuclear reactions of the PPIII‐branch of the proton‐proton chain may allow the high‐energy solar neutrino flux to vary over time.