Homestake experiment (nonfiction)
The Homestake experiment (sometimes referred to as the Davis experiment) was a physics experiment headed by astrophysicists Raymond Davis, Jr. and John N. Bahcall in the late 1960s.
Its purpose was to collect and count neutrinos emitted by nuclear fusion taking place in the Sun. Bahcall did the theoretical calculations and Davis designed the experiment.
After Bahcall calculated the rate at which the detector should capture neutrinos, Davis's experiment turned up only one third of this figure.
The experiment was the first to successfully detect and count solar neutrinos, and the discrepancy in results created the solar neutrino problem.
The experiment operated continuously from 1970 until 1994. The University of Pennsylvania took it over in 1984. The discrepancy between the predicted and measured rates of neutrino detection was later found to be due to neutrino "flavour" oscillations.
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Nonfiction cross-reference
External links:
- Homestake experiment @ Wikipedia