Geoneutrinos at Jinping: Flux prediction and oscillation analysis

2016/12/31 by Linyan Wan, Ghulam Hussain, Zhe Wang +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-ex #physics.geo-ph #physics.ins-det

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.95.053001

published as Phys. Rev. D 95, 053001 (2017)

arxiv created 2017/02/07 · arxiv updated 2017/03/08

Abstract

Geoneutrinos are electron antineutrinos (ν_e) generated by the beta-decays of radionuclides naturally occurring inside the Earth, in particular ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, and ⁴⁰K. Measurement of these neutrinos provides powerful constraints on the radiogenic heat of the Earth and tests on the Earth models. Since the prediction of ν_e's in geoneutrino flux is subject to neutrino oscillation effects, we performed a calculation including detailed oscillation analysis in the propagation of geoneutrinos and reactor neutrinos generated around the Earth. The expected geoneutrino signal, the reactor neutrino background rates and the systematic error budget are provided for a proposed 3-kiloton neutrino detector at the Jinping underground lab in Sichuan, China. In addition, we evaluated sensitivities for the geoneutrino flux, Th/U ratio and power of a possible fission reactor in the interior of Earth.

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