3 research outputs found
A New Approach to Background Subtraction in Low-Energy Neutrino Experiments
We discuss a new method to extract neutrino signals in low energy
experiments. In this scheme the symmetric nature of most backgrounds allows for
direct cancellation from data. The application of this technique to the Palo
Verde reactor neutrino oscillation experiment allowed us to reduce the
measurement errors on the anti-neutrino flux from % to %. We
expect this method to substantially improve the data quality in future low
background experiments such as KamLAND and LENS.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
Detection of Supernova Neutrinos by Neutrino-Proton Elastic Scattering
We propose that neutrino-proton elastic scattering, ,
can be used for the detection of supernova neutrinos in scintillator detectors.
Though the proton recoil kinetic energy spectrum is soft, with , and the scintillation light output from slow, heavily ionizing
protons is quenched, the yield above a realistic threshold is nearly as large
as that from . In addition, the measured proton
spectrum is related to the incident neutrino spectrum, which solves a
long-standing problem of how to separately measure the total energy and
temperature of , , , and .
The ability to detect this signal would give detectors like KamLAND and
Borexino a crucial and unique role in the quest to detect supernova neutrinos.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, revtex