Geoneutrinos in Large Direct Detection Experiments
Abstract
Geoneutrinos can provide a unique insight into Earth's interior, its central engine and its formation history. We study the detection of geoneutrinos in large direct detection experiments, which has been considered non-feasible. We compute the geoneutrino-induced electron and nuclear recoil spectra in different materials, under several optimistic assumptions. We identify germanium as the most promising target element due to the low nuclear recoil energy threshold that could be achieved. The minimum exposure required for detection would be tonne-years. The realistic low thresholds achievable in germanium and silicon permit the detection of K geoneutrinos. These are particularly important to determine Earth's formation history but they are below the kinematic threshold of inverse beta decay, the detection process used in scintillator-based experiments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1812.05550,
title = {Geoneutrinos in Large Direct Detection Experiments},
author = {Graciela B. Gelmini and Volodymyr Takhistov and Samuel J. Witte},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.05550},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
12 pages, 6 figures, 6 tables; v3: published version