Physical Review Letters, 79: 4522 - 4524, 8 December 1997



Absence of Correlation between the Solar Neutrino Flux and the Sunspot Number



Guenther Walther

Department of Statistics, Sequoia Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA




ABSTRACT

There exists a considerable amount of research claiming a puzzling anticorrelation between the neutrino detection rate at the Homestake experiment and indicators of solar activity such as the sunspot number, giving rise to explanations involving the hypothesis of a neutrino magnetic moment. It is argued here that the claimed significant anticorrelation is due to a statistical fallacy. A proper test based on certain optimality criteria fails to detect a significant time variation of the neutrino flux in concert with the sunspot number, providing evidence that the observations are consistent with no correlation between the two series.





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Last modified: 2002 April 30.