NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an advisor to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and of advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
This project was supported by the Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG02-93ER40810 and by the Basic Science Fund of the National Academy of Sciences, whose contributors include the AT&T Foundation, Atlantic Richfield Foundation, BP America, Dow Chemical Company, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., IBM Corporation, Merck and Company, Inc., Monsanto Company, and Shell Oil Companies Foundation.
Additional copies of this report are available from:
Board on Physics and Astronomy
HA 562
National Research Council
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20418
Copyright 1995 by the National Academy of Sciences . All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
PANEL ON NEUTRINO ASTROPHYSICS
JOHN N. BAHCALL,
Institute for Advanced Study,
Chair
KENNETH LANDE,
University of Pennsylvania
ROBERT E. LANOU, JR.,
Brown University
JOHN LEARNED,
University of Hawaii
R.G. HAMISH ROBERTSON,
Los Alamos National Laboratory
LINCOLN WOLFENSTEIN,
Carnegie Mellon University
ROBERT L. RIEMER,
Senior Program Officer
BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
DAVID N. SCHRAMM,
University of Chicago,
Chair
ROBERT C. DYNES,
University of California, San Diego,
Vice-Chair
LLOYD ARMSTRONG, JR.,
University of Southern California
DAVID H. AUSTON,
Rice University
DAVID E. BALDWIN,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
PRAVEEN CHAUDHARI, IBM T.J.
Watson Research Center
FRANK DRAKE,
University of California, Santa Cruz
HANS FRAUENFELDER,
Los Alamos National Laboratory
JEROME I. FRIEDMAN,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MARGARET GELLER,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
MARTHA P. HAYNES,
Cornell University
WILLIAM KLEMPERER,
Harvard University
ALBERT NARATH,
Sandia National Laboratories
JOSEPH M. PROUD,
GTE Corporation (retired)
ROBERT C. RICHARDSON,
Cornell University
JOHANNA STACHEL,
State University of New York at Stony Brook
DAVID WILKINSON,
Princeton University
SIDNEY WOLFF,
National Optical Astronomy Observatories
DONALD C. SHAPERO,
Director
ROBERT L. RIEMER,
Associate Director
DANIEL F. MORGAN,
Senior Program Officer
NATASHA A. CASEY,
Program Assistant
STEPHANIE Y. SMITH,
Project Assistant
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
RICHARD N. ZARE,
Stanford University,
Chair
RICHARD S. NICHOLSON,
American Association for the Advancement of Science,
Vice Chair
STEPHEN L. ADLER,
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
SYLVIA T. CEYER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
SUSAN L. GRAHAM,
University of California, Berkeley
ROBERT J. HERMANN,
United Technologies Corporation
RHONDA J. HUGHES,
Bryn Mawr College
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
Rutgers University
KENNETH I. KELLERMAN,
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
HANS MARK,
University of Texas at Austin
THOMAS A. PRINCE,
California Institute of Technology
JEROME SACKS,
National Institute of Statistical Sciences
L.E. SCRIVEN,
University of Minnesota
A. RICHARD SEEBASS III,
University of Colorado
LEON T. SILVER,
California Institute of Technology
CHARLES P. SLICHTER,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ALVIN W. TRIVELPIECE,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
SHMUEL WINOGRAD,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
CHARLES A. ZRAKET,
MITRE Corporation (retired)
NORMAN METZGER,
Executive Director
Preface
The Board on Physics and Astronomy (BPA) is reassessing the areas of physics that were examined by the Physics Survey Committee in their report, Physics Through the 1990s (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1986). One of the eight volumes of the report, Gravitation, Cosmology, and Cosmic-Ray Physics, was the subject of a National Research Council program initiation meeting that I chaired in 1992. At that meeting, the need for reassessments in the areas of cosmology, neutrino astrophysics, and cosmic-ray physics was identified.
The Panel on Neutrino Astrophysics, along with the Committee on Cosmic-Ray Physics and the Panel on Cosmology, is part of this updating effort. Because of the connection to astrophysics and astronomy, the BPA has coordinated with the Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics in the conduct of this study. The panel is chaired by John Bahcall, who also chaired the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee, whose report The Decade of Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics (National Academy Press, 1991) issued priorities for that field.
The research briefing format is intended to provide advice to program managers and policy makers on the opportunities for scientific advances in a frontier field. As one can see, the field of neutrino astrophysics offers several promising avenues for fundamental discoveries.
David Schramm
Chair
Board on Physics and Astronomy