Collaborative Research: Mini-LENS -- Operation of a Prototype Low-Energy Solar Neutrino Spectrometer Underground

合作研究：Mini-LENS——原型低能太阳中微子光谱仪在地下的运行

• 批准号: 1001394
• 负责人: ROBERT VOGELAAR
• 金额: $ 114.89万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1001394&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Mini; LENS; Operation

Neutrinos from the Sun are ideal for studying neutrino-flavor phenomena and astrophysics. The Sun offers the greatest source flux of a pure electron-neutrino flavor coupled with high matter density in neutrino transport, long baseline, and low neutrino energies. An effective tool for new advances compares the luminosity of the Sun separately measured by neutrinos and photons that can uncover surprises in neutrino physics as well as astrophysics. A precision measurement of the neutrino-derived luminosity of the Sun is possible only by the detection of low-energy (2 MeV) solar neutrinos that contain 99.9% of the flux. One of the few answers to the experimental challenge of real-time low-energy neutrino detection is the indium-based Low Energy Solar Neutrino Spectrometer, LENS. It will uniquely provide a nearly background-free complete spectral image of solar neutrinos using Charged-Current-based neutrino detection with powerful tags of space and time coincidences. This award will provide funds to test the LENS concept and technology in all its aspects via a relatively inexpensive prototype - Mini-LENS - at 15% of the length-scale (1/300 the volume) of LENS, with the goal of providing a robust characterization of the performance of the technology. The broader impact on science, technology and education includes: the participation of students and postdocs with opportunities and outlets for curiosity- and imagination-driven research into a physics understanding of the world with simulations, chemical processing, and data acquisition systems. Students will gain valuable hands-on experience working with state-of-the-art instrumentation. Convenient access to the underground laboratory at Kimballton provides excellent training in the intricacies of research underground. The technology of mini-LENS reaches into other realms, and provides new opportunities in other fields.

来自太阳的中微子非常适合研究中微子味道现象和天体物理学。太阳提供了最大的源源通量，其中包括纯电子 - 中微子在中微子传输，长基线和低中微子能量中的高物质密度。一种有效的新进步工具比较了通过中微子和光子分别测量的太阳的光度，这些中微子和光子可能会发现中微子物理和天体物理学的惊喜。只有通过检测含有99.9％通量的低能（2 MeV）太阳中微子的检测，才能对太阳的中微子衍生的光度进行精确测量。实时低能中微子检测的实验挑战的少数答案之一是基于依赖性的低能太阳中微子光谱仪，镜头。它将使用带电基于电流的中微子检测具有强大的空间和时间巧合标签，提供几乎无背景的太阳中微子的完整光谱图像。该奖项将通过相对便宜的原型（迷你镜头）提供资金，以在其所有方面测试镜头概念和技术，占镜头长度尺度（1/300卷）的15％，目的是为技术的性能提供强大的表征。对科学，技术和教育的更广泛的影响包括：学生和博士后的参与，以及通过模拟，化学处理和数据获取系统对物理学理解的好奇心和想象力驱动的研究的机会和渠道。学生将获得有价值的动手实践经验，从而使用最先进的仪器。方便地进入金博尔顿的地下实验室，为地下研究的复杂性提供了出色的培训。迷你镜头技术进入其他领域，并在其他领域提供新的机会。