High energy neutrinos from the Sun

Understand

The Sun is a main source of high energy neutrinos.

• These neutrinos appear as secondary particles after the Sun absorbs high-energy cosmic rays, that find there a low-density environment (much thinner than our atmosphere) where most secondary pions, kaons and muons can decay before they lose energy.
• The main uncertainty in a calculation of the solar neutrino flux is due to the effects of the magnetic fields on the absorption rate of charged cosmic rays.
• We use recent data from HAWC on the cosmic-ray shadow of the Sun to estimate this rate.