English

A step toward CNO solar neutrinos detection in liquid scintillators

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2015-03-19 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Experiment

Abstract

The detection of CNO solar neutrinos in ultrapure liquid scintillator detectors is limited by the background produced by Bismuth-210 nuclei that undergo beta-decay to Polonium-210 with a lifetime equal to about 7 days. Polonium-210 nuclei are unstable and decay with a lifetime equal to about 200 days emitting alpha particles that can be also detected. In this letter, we show that the Bi-210 background can be determined by looking at the time evolution of alpha-decay rate of Po-210, provided that alpha particle detection efficiency is stable over the data acquisition period and external sources of Po-210 are negligible. A sufficient accuracy can be obtained in a relatively short time. As an example, if the initial Po-210 event rate is 2000 cpd/100 ton or lower, a Borexino-like detector could start discerning CNO neutrino signal from Bi-210 background in about 1 yr.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1104.1335,
  title  = {A step toward CNO solar neutrinos detection in liquid scintillators},
  author = {F. L. Villante and A. Ianni and F. Lombardi and G. Pagliaroli and F. Vissani},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1104.1335},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

12 pages, 3 figures