Exploring the hidden interior of the Earth with directional neutrino measurements

Leyton, Michael; Dye, Stephen; Monroe, Jocelyn

doi:10.1038/ncomms15989

Title: Exploring the hidden interior of the Earth with directional neutrino measurements

Journal Article · Mon Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15989· OSTI ID:1430052

Leyton, Michael ^[1]; Dye, Stephen ^[2]; Monroe, Jocelyn ^[3]

The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Bellaterra (Spain). Inst. of Fisica d'Altes Engergies; Royal Holloway Univ. of London, Egham Hill, Egham (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics; Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Lab. for Nuclear Science
Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Royal Holloway Univ. of London, Egham Hill, Egham (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics; Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Lab. for Nuclear Science; High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba (Japan)

Roughly 40% of the Earth’s total heat flow is powered by radioactive decays in the crust and mantle. Geo-neutrinos produced by these decays provide important clues about the origin, formation and thermal evolution of our planet, as well as the composition of its interior. Previous measurements of geo-neutrinos have all relied on the detection of inverse beta decay reactions, which are insensitive to the contribution from potassium and do not provide model-independent information about the spatial distribution of geo-neutrino sources within the Earth. Here in this paper we present a method for measuring previously unresolved components of Earth’s radiogenic heating using neutrino-electron elastic scattering and low-background, direction-sensitive tracking detectors.We calculate the exposures needed to probe various contributions to the total geo-neutrino flux, specifically those associated to potassium, the mantle and the core. The measurements proposed here chart a course for pioneering exploration of the veiled inner workings of the Earth.

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Research Organization:: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain (MINECO); National Science Foundation (NSF); Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-05ER41360; ST/K002570/1; ECF-20130496; 665919; FPA2014-77347-C2-2; SEV-2012-0234

OSTI ID:: 1430052

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 8; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 15 works

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Radioactive heat production of six geologically important nuclides: RADIOACTIVE HEAT PRODUCTION Ruedas, Thomas Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, Vol. 18, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017gc006997	journal	September 2017
A Dark Matter Hurricane: Measuring the S1 Stream with Dark Matter Detectors O'Hare, Ciaran A. J.; McCabe, Christopher; Evans, N. Wyn arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1807.09004	text	January 2018

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