Solar Neutrinos

Abstract

Experimental work with solar neutrinos has illuminated the properties of neutrinos and tested models of how the sun produces its energy. Three experiments continue to take data, and at least seven are in various stages of planning or construction. In this review, the current experimental status is summarized, and future directions explored with a focus on the effects of a non-zero theta-13 and the interesting possibility of directly testing the luminosity constraint. Such a confrontation at the few-percent level would provide a prediction of the solar irradiance tens of thousands of years in the future for comparison with the present-day irradiance. A model-independent analysis of existing low-energy data shows good agreement between the neutrino and electromagnetic luminosities at the +/- 20 % level.