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After 60 years, here comes the Sun

Published 16 Sep 2026 in hep-ex, astro-ph.SR, and physics.ins-det | (2609.18799v1)

Abstract: For sixty years, the Sun served neutrino physics more than the reverse: its neutrinos established oscillations rather than probing the star itself. That is now changing. Reactor antineutrinos have pinned down the oscillation parameters governing solar-neutrino flavour conversion so precisely that the propagation-related uncertainty is becoming negligible -- closing the first of two abysses. Solar neutrinos can, at last, be turned on the Sun. Yet a second abyss remains: today's solar-neutrino detection falls an order of magnitude short of the precision the Standard Solar Model already predicts for the dominant pp flux ($&gt;\,$90%\%) -- a gap no reactor experiment can close. The intrinsic <sup>14C<sup>{14}\mathrm{C} background walls off the pp region; only new detection techniques can breach it. Bridging this second abyss demands a revolution, not an increment. Combined with helioseismology's complementary reading of the Sun's mechanical structure, precision neutrino measurements of the nuclear source terms would enable a multi-messenger heliotomography of the solar interior -- reading our star from both sides at once. A new age of solar discoveries may follow, on one condition: that the field builds the instruments equal to the task.

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