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Measurement of the cosmogenic 11C background with the Borexino Counting Test Facility

Journal Article · · AIP Conference Proceedings
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2722077· OSTI ID:21055015
 [1]
  1. University of Milano, via Celoria 16, I-20133 Milano, (Italy)

Within next year, two organic liquid scintillator detectors, Borexino and KamLAND, will start the measurement of the mono-energetic 7Be solar neutrino flux in real time. Besides this objective, both of them have the potential to detect neutrinos from the pep fusion reaction and the CNO cycle in the Sun.For this purpose, two conditions are required: an extremely low radioactive contamination level and the efficient identification of the 11C background, produced in reactions induced by the residual cosmic muon flux on 12C. In the process, a free neutron is almost always produced. 11C can be tagged on an event by event basis by looking at the three-fold coincidence with the parent muon track and the subsequent neutron capture on protons. We tested successfully this coincidence method with the Borexino Counting Test Facility. The results are reported here.Moreover, we discuss on the effective potential of Borexino and KamLAND in detecting pep+CNO neutrinos compared to SNO+, a detector specifically designed for measuring the pep+CNO {nu} flux and that will take data from 2009.

OSTI ID:
21055015
Journal Information:
AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 897; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English