News

Davide Basilico (UniMi and INFN) has won the 2020 con.Scienze Prize for physics, with his doctorate thesis regarding the first measurement of neutrinos from the CNO cycle in the Sun, obtained exploiting Borexino data. The Prize is awarded to the best thesis among those submitted by the Physics Departments which are members of the Conference of the Deans of the Science Faculties. Each Department can present only one thesis.

Solar neutrinos play a unique and irreplaceable role for the comprehension of the mechanisms powering our star. The study of solar neutrino fluxes provides  conclusive evidence  that the Sun is powered by thermonuclear reactions occurring in its core. Neutrinos emitted in the CNO cycle of reactions were the only undetected piece of the solar fusion puzzle. This cycle is expected to contribute only ~1% to the solar luminosity, while it is believed to be the main engine of very massive stars. Therefore, observing neutrinos from the CNO reactions has a striking importance in astrophysics, since it provides the first direct confirmation of the existence of this energy source in the core of the stars.

This measurement has been obtained with Phase-III data from Borexino, an experiment located at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, which exploits approximately 300 tons of liquid scintillator.

Davide has worked within the Borexino analysis group giving a fundamental contribution to the first direct detection of  CNO neutrinos. The details of the analysis strategy and the astrophysical implications of this measurement are described in his thesis. This important result has been published by the Borexino collaboration in Nature in November 2020.