Antineutrino Spectroscopy with Large Water Čerenkov Detectors

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20 October 2004

journal article
research article
Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters

Vol. 93 (17) , 171101
https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.93.171101

Abstract

We propose modifying large water Čerenkov detectors by the addition of 0.2% gadolinium trichloride, which is highly soluble, newly inexpensive, and transparent in solution. Since Gd has an enormous cross section for radiative neutron capture, with

\sum_{}^{} E_{γ} = 8 M e V

, this would make neutrons visible for the first time in such detectors, allowing antineutrino tagging by the coincidence detection reaction

{\bar{ν}}_{e} + p \to e^{+} + n

(similarly for

{\bar{ν}}_{μ}

). Taking Super-Kamiokande as a working example, dramatic consequences for reactor neutrino measurements, first observation of the diffuse supernova neutrino background, galactic supernova detection, and other topics are discussed.

Keywords

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Version 1, 2003-09-26, ArXiv

This publication has 28 references indexed in Scilit:

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