184 research outputs found
Potential of Geo-neutrino Measurements at JUNO
The flux of geoneutrinos at any point on the Earth is a function of the
abundance and distribution of radioactive elements within our planet. This flux
has been successfully detected by the 1-kt KamLAND and 0.3-kt Borexino
detectors with these measurements being limited by their low statistics. The
planned 20-kt JUNO detector will provide an exciting opportunity to obtain a
high statistics measurement, which will provide data to address several
questions of geological importance. This paper presents the JUNO detector
design concept, the expected geo-neutrino signal and corresponding backgrounds.
The precision level of geo-neutrino measurements at JUNO is obtained with the
standard least-squares method. The potential of the Th/U ratio and mantle
measurements is also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, an additional author added, final version to
appear in Chin. Phys.
Expected geoneutrino signal at JUNO
Constraints on the Earth's composition and on its radiogenic energy budget
come from the detection of geoneutrinos. The KamLAND and Borexino experiments
recently reported the geoneutrino flux, which reflects the amount and
distribution of U and Th inside the Earth. The KamLAND and Borexino experiments
recently reported the geoneutrino flux, which reflects the amount and
distribution of U and Th inside the Earth. The JUNO neutrino experiment,
designed as a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector, will be built in an
underground laboratory in South China about 53 km from the Yangjiang and
Taishan nuclear power plants. Given the large detector mass and the intense
reactor antineutrino flux, JUNO aims to collect high statistics antineutrino
signals from reactors but also to address the challenge of discriminating the
geoneutrino signal from the reactor background.The predicted geoneutrino signal
at JUNO is 39.7 TNU, based on the existing reference Earth
model, with the dominant source of uncertainty coming from the modeling of the
compositional variability in the local upper crust that surrounds (out to
500 km) the detector. A special focus is dedicated to the 6{\deg} x
4{\deg} Local Crust surrounding the detector which is estimated to contribute
for the 44% of the signal. On the base of a worldwide reference model for
reactor antineutrinos, the ratio between reactor antineutrino and geoneutrino
signals in the geoneutrino energy window is estimated to be 0.7 considering
reactors operating in year 2013 and reaches a value of 8.9 by adding the
contribution of the future nuclear power plants. In order to extract useful
information about the mantle's composition, a refinement of the abundance and
distribution of U and Th in the Local Crust is required, with particular
attention to the geochemical characterization of the accessible upper crust.Comment: Slight changes and improvements in the text,22 pages, 4 Figures, 3
Tables. Prog. in Earth and Planet. Sci. (2015
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