Low energy neutrinos as geological and astrophysical messengers [Elektronische Ressource] / Kathrin Angela Hochmuth

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• Physik

Informations

• Publié par: technische_universitat_munchen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 27
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Dissertation





Low Energy Neutrinos
as geological and
astrophysical Messengers

by

Kathrin Angela Hochmuth
Technische Universit¨at Mu¨nchen
Physik Department
Institut fu¨r Experimentalphysik E15
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Lothar Oberauer
Low Energy Neutrinos
as geological and
astrophysical Messengers
Kathrin Angela Hochmuth
Vollst¨andiger Abdruck der von der Fakult¨at fu¨r Physik der Technischen Uni-
versit¨at Mu¨nchen zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines
Doktors der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.)
genehmigten Dissertation.
Vorsitzender: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Andrzej J. Buras
Pru¨fer der Dissertation: 1. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Lothar Oberauer
2. Hon.-Prof. Allen C. Caldwell, Ph. D.
Die Dissertation wurde am 12.03.2008 bei der Technischen Universit¨at
Mu¨nchen eingereicht und durch die Fakult¨at fu¨r Physik am 29.04.2008
angenommen.Abstract
Future neutrino experiments will open up exciting possibilities to use neu-
trinos as messengers from diverse sources. A special focus of this thesis is
put on neutrinos from the Earth’s interior, the core of reactors and from the
diffuse supernova neutrino background.
As a first main point, neutrinos originating from the decay of radioactive
nuclei in the Earth, so called geoneutrinos, shall be discussed. These decays
release a large amount of thermal energy. As the heat budget of the Earth
and thus the mechanisms that e.g. power the Earth’s magnetic field pose so
far unresolved questions, a precision measurement of geoneutrinos that are
directlylinkedtotheheatproductioncandelivernewinformation.Moreover,
questions about the composition of the Earth can be answered, as presently
information is only obtainable in an indirect way, i.e. via model dependent
conclusions based on crustal and meteoritic samples.
We introduce a method to detect the direction of anti-neutrinos and an-
alyze if it can be used to obtain angle dependent information on the Earth’s
structure. To that end we use information about the original neutrino direc-
tion that is encoded in the anti-neutrino detection reaction.
We also transfer the method of neutrino direction measurement to reac-
tor neutrino experiments with two nuclear reactors as neutrino sources. We
investigate how to monitor the individual power output of each reactor and
the possibilities of locating strong neutrino sources. We also discuss, if a sep-
aration of two reactors is possible by watching the cores in “neutrino light”.
This proof of principle analysis could open up new ways of power reactor
monitoring.
As a third main point we turn to another so far undetected source of
neutrinos, namely the diffuse supernova neutrino background. These neu-
trinos originate from all supernovae that have occurred so far and form an
overall cosmic background. We conduct a forecast of what can be learned
about the supernova and star formation parameters from a measurement of
both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos in future liquid scintillator detectors. The
parameter space that determines the diffuse neutrino flux is large and inde-
pendent measurements of the parameters do mostly not exist or are model
dependent. Therefore, we conduct an analysis that considers this lack of in-
formation and gives realistic perspectives. Moreover, we show the results of
ananalytic fitto thediffuseneutrinospectrum,whichreducestheparameter
spaceconsiderablyandillustratestheinterdependenceoftheparameters.We
again conduct an error forecast and relate our results to the full analysis.
iiiContents
Preface 1
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Neutrinos as messenger particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2 Low energy neutrino experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.1 Liquid scintillator detectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.2 LAGUNA initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2 Geoneutrinos in LENA 17
2.1 The Earth’s interior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.1 Distribution of radionuclides in the Earth . . . . . . . 20
2.1.2 Radioactivity in the core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2 Feasibility studies for LENA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2.1 Directional information from neutron displacement . . 25
2.2.2 PXE-based scintillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.3 Gadolinium-loaded scintillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.4 Backgrounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3 Models of the Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4 Analytic treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.5 Monte Carlo study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.6 Summary of chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3 Directional Sensitivity in Double Chooz 45
3.1 Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2 Analytic Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.2.1 Width L of displacement-vector distribution . . . . . . 48
3.2.2 Average neutron displacement ℓ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2.3 Relative reactor strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2.4 Separation angle of reactors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.2.5 Error estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3 Maximum likelihood estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3.1 The method of maximum likelihood . . . . . . . . . . . 52
iii3.3.2 Relative reactor strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.3 Reactor directions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.3.4 Reactor directions with tilt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.4 Summary of chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4 Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background 63
4.1 Diffuse supernova neutrino spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.1.1 Supernova neutrino spectrum at the source . . . . . . . 64
4.1.2 Star formation and supernova rate . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.2 Backgrounds in LENA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.2.1 Reactor ν¯ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70e
4.2.2 Atmospheric ν¯ background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73e
4.2.3 Cosmogenic background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.3 Predictions for a future DSNB detection . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.3.1 Baseline model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.3.2 Sensitivity forecast for a future DSNB measurement . . 77
4.3.3 Analytical fit to the DSNB spectrum . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.4 Summary of chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5 Conclusions 91
A Statistical methods 97
A.1 Maximum likelihood analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
2A.2 χ analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
B Neutrino oscillations 103
Acknowledgments 107
ivPreface
Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt, eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, der Trag¨odie erster Teil
AsFaustinGoethe’smasterpiece,westrivetounderstandnatureandthe
fundamental connections underlying everything we experience. Astroparticle
and neutrino physics in particular are connecting different areas of physics
and astrophysics. The neutrino, insignificant as it may seem, has had a great
impact on particle physics in the last years and will continue to have this
impact in years to come, with prospects that investigating the properties of
the neutrinos can even shed light on fundamental questions in early universe
cosmology.
This thesis is also a joint venture of different topics connecting theories
concerning neutrinos from Earth and stars with large volume liquid scintil-
lator detectors. These detector types, which presently exist in smaller ver-
sions are likely the future of neutrino experiments. In chapter 1 we give a
brief introduction to the topics of this thesis concerning geoneutrinos, reac-
tor neutrinos and diffuse supernova neutrinos. We concentrate in particular
on liquid scintillator experiments, with which we intend a detection of the
neutrino sources discussed here. A special focus is thereby on the proposed
LENAdetector,whereasummarypaperaboutthephysicsgoalsispublished
as
[I] T. Marrod´an Undagoitia, F. von Feilitzsch, M. G¨oger-Neff,
K. A. Hochmuth, L. Oberauer, W. Potzel and M. Wurm, “Low energy
neutrino astronomy with the large liquid scintillation detector LENA,”
Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 57, 283 (2006) [J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 39, 278
(2006)] [arXiv:hep-ph/0605229].
The LENA detector concept is part of the LAGUNA initiative that explores
thepossibilitiesoffuturelargevolumedetectors.Wewilldiscussthedetector
typesencompassedbytheLAGUNAprojectinchapter1.Iamalsoamember
of the LAGUNA project. A summary paper of detector concepts and the
physics opportunities is published as
[II] D. Autiero et al., “Large underground, liquid based detectors for astro-
particle physics in Europe: scientific case and prospects,” JCAP0711,
011 (2007) [arXiv:0705.0116 [hep-ph]].
1In chapter 2 we discuss the properties of geoneu