2006/09/28 by Kathrin A. Hochmuth, Franz von Feilitzsch, Franz v. Feilitzsch +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s11038-006-9111-9
published as EarthMoonPlanets99:253-264,2006 · 13 pages, 3 figures. Contributed to the proceedings of Neutrino Sciences 2005: Neutrino Geophysics, Honolulu, HI, 14-16 Dec 2005
openalex publication_date 2006/09/28 · arxiv created 2006/10/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A future large-volume liquid scintillator detector such as the proposed 50 kton LENA (Low Energy Neutrino Astronomy) detector would provide a high-statistics measurement of terrestrial antineutrinos originating from β-decays of the uranium and thorium chains. Additionally, the neutron is scattered in the forward direction in the detection reaction νe+p→ n+e+. Henceforth, we investigate to what extent LENA can distinguish between certain geophysical models on the basis of the angular dependence of the geoneutrino flux. Our analysis is based on a Monte-Carlo simulation with different levels of light yield, considering an unloaded PXE scintillator. We find that LENA is able to detect deviations from isotropy of the geoneutrino flux with high significance. However, if only the directional information is used, the time required to distinguish between different geophysical models is of the order of severals decades. Nonetheless, a high-statistics measurement of the total geoneutrino flux and its spectrum still provides an extremely useful glance at the Earth's interior.