We review the results of solar neutrino physics, with particular attention to the data obtained and the analyses performed in the last decades, which were determinant to solve the solar neutrino problem (SNP), proving that neutrinos are massive and o
scillating particles and contributing to refine the solar models. We also discuss the perspectives of the presently running experiments in this sector and of the ones planned for the near future and the impact they can have on elementary particle physics and astrophysics.
The study of solar neutrinos has given since ever a fundamental contribution both to astroparticle and to elementary particle physics, offering an ideal test of solar models and offering at the same time relevant indications on the fundamental intera
ctions among particles. After reviewing the striking results of the last two decades, which were determinant to solve the long standing solar neutrino puzzle and refine the Standard Solar Model, we focus our attention on the more recent results in this field and on the experiments presently running or planned for the near future. The main focus at the moment is to improve the knowledge of the mass and mixing pattern and especially to study in detail the lowest energy part of the spectrum, which represents most of solar neutrino spectrum but is still a partially unexplored realm. We discuss this research project and the way in which present and future experiments could contribute to make the theoretical framemork more complete and stable, understanding the origin of some anomalies that seem to emerge from the data and contributing to answer some present questions, like the exact mechanism of the vacuum to matter transition and the solution of the so called solar metallicity problem.
More than 40 years ago, neutrinos where conceived as a way to test the validity of the solar models which tell us that stars are powered by nuclear fusion reactions. The first measurement of the neutrino flux, in 1968 in the Homestake mine in South D
akota, detected only one third of the expected value, originating what has been known as the Solar Neutrino Problem. Different experiments were built in order to understand the origin of this discrepancy. Now we know that neutrinos undergo oscillation phenomenon changing their nature traveling from the core of the Sun to our detectors. In the work the 40 year long saga of the neutrino detection is presented; from the first proposals to test the solar models to last real time measurements of the low energy part of the neutrino spectrum.
