Space Sciences Institute - Bucharest, Romania.

NOTTE Experiment (Neutrino Oscillations with Telescopes during the Total Eclipse)

The solar neutrino deficit could arise from one type neutrino oscillation into a second type. Assuming that neutrinos would have a mass, the radiative neutrino decays could be possible. An experiment for searching the neutrino decays during the total solar eclipse of August 11, 1999 is preparing by Physics Department of Bologna University (Italy) and Institute for Space Sciences (Romania). It involves the visible photons emitted by the neutrinos travelling from the Moon to the Earth.

The experiment will use two optical telescopes: one, of 250/1200 mm, placed on the ground at high altitude (in mountains, at more that 1,500 m) and another one, of 125mm, airborne on a turbo jet flying along the umbra path on the Romanian territory. Both the telescopes will be equipped with fast reading (SCASI) 786 x 512 pixels CCD. As a byproduct, the digital images of the solar corona will be obtained during the totality; their processing could give valuable information about the coronal structure and dynamics as well as on solar prominences, coronal streamers and coronal mass ejections.

More details can be found at: http://venus.nipne.ro