JINA-CEE – IReNA Online Seminar:
By Alessandra Carlotta Re (INFN and University of Milan, Italy)
Abstract: Borexino was a liquid-scintillator experiment designed and constructed for real-time detection of low energy solar neutrinos. Installed at the underground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (L’Aquila, Italy), it continuously took data from May 2007 to October 2021. Thanks to its unprecedented and extreme radiopurity, Borexino was able to perform a complete spectroscopy of the solar neutrinos emitted from the proton-proton chain reactions, and to directly measure, for the first time, the CNO (Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen) solar neutrinos rate. These results leaded to a better comprehension of the mechanisms powering our star, and paved the way for a solution to the long-standing solar metallicity problem.
In the CNO-cycle, in fact, the hydrogen fusion is catalysed by Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen: consequently, the neutrinos flux directly depends on these elements abundance in the solar core and on the metallicity scenario. This talk will cover the most recent Borexino results on solar neutrinos spectroscopy, focusing on their impact on solar physics.