Independent determination of the Earth's orbital parameters with solar neutrinos in Borexino

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Technical University of Munich
  • Jülich Research Centre
  • National Institute for Nuclear Physics
  • Princeton University
  • Lomonosov Moscow State University
  • RAS - Saint Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute
  • Institute for Celestial Mechanics and Computation of Ephemerides
  • Gran Sasso Science Institute
  • RWTH Aachen University
  • Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
  • Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
  • Jagiellonian University in Kraków
  • National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
  • Royal Holloway University of London
  • Hungarian Academy of Sciences
  • Russian Research Centre Kurchatov Institute
  • Moscow Engineering Physics Institute

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2012, the Borexino collaboration has been reporting precision measurements of the solar neutrino fluxes, emitted in the proton–proton chain and in the Carbon–Nitrogen–Oxygen cycle. The experimental sensitivity achieved in Phase-II and Phase-III of the Borexino data taking made it possible to detect the annual modulation of the solar neutrino interaction rate due to the eccentricity of Earth's orbit, with a statistical significance greater than 5σ. This is the first precise measurement of the Earth's orbital parameters based solely on solar neutrinos and an additional signature of the solar origin of the Borexino signal. The complete periodogram of the time series of the Borexino solar neutrino detection rate is also reported, exploring frequencies between one cycle/year and one cycle/day. No other significant modulation frequencies are found. The present results were uniquely made possible by Borexino's decade-long high-precision solar neutrino detection.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number102778
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalAstroparticle physics
Volume145
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Annual modulation, Earth's orbit parameters, Neutrino day–night effect, Solar neutrinos, Solar standard model

Library keywords