SOX: search for short baseline neutrino oscillations with Borexino

International audience; The Borexino detector has convincingly shown its outstanding performances in the low energy regime through its accomplishments in the observation and study of the solar and geo neutrinos. It is then an ideal tool to perform a state of the art source-based experiment for testing the longstanding hypothesis of a fourth sterile neutrino with ~ eV(2) mass, as suggested by several anomalies accumulated over the past three decades in source, reactor, and accelerator-based experiments. The SOX project aims at successively deploying two intense radioactive sources, made of Cerium (antineutrino) and Chromium (neutrino), respectively, in a dedicated pit located beneath the det…

Short distance neutrino oscillations with Borexino

International audience; The Borexino detector has convincingly shown its outstanding performances in the low energy, sub-MeV regime through its unprecedented accomplishments in the solar and geo-neutrinos detection. These performances make it the ideal tool to accomplish a state-of-the-art experiment able to test unambiguously the long-standing issue of the existence of a sterile neutrino, as suggested by the several anomalous results accumulated over the past two decades, i.e. the outputs of the LSND and Miniboone experiments, the results of the source calibration of the two Gallium solar neutrino experiments, and the recently hinted reactor anomaly. The SOX project will exploit two source…

First real–time detection of solar pp neutrinos by Borexino

International audience; Solar neutrinos have been pivotal to the discovery of neutrino flavour oscillations and are a unique tool to probe the reactions that keep the Sun shine. Although most of solar neutrino components have been directly measured, the neutrinos emitted by the keystone pp reaction, in which two protons fuse to make a deuteron, have so far eluded direct detection. The Borexino experiment, an ultra-pure liquid scintillator detector running at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, has now filled the gap, providing the first direct real time measurement of pp neutrinos and of the solar neutrino luminosity.

A test of electric charge conservation with Borexino

Borexino is a liquid scintillation detector located deep underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS, Italy). Thanks to the unmatched radio-purity of the scintillator, and to the well understood detector response at low energy, a new limit on the stability of the electron for decay into a neutrino and a single mono-energetic photon was obtained. This new bound, tau > 6.6 10**28 yr at 90 % C.L., is two orders of magnitude better than the previous limit.

The $^{144}$Ce source for SOX

International audience; The SOX (Short distance neutrino Oscillations with BoreXino) project aims at testing the light sterile neutrino hypothesis. To do so, two artificials sources of antineutrinos and neutrinos respectively will be consecutively deployed at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in close vicinity to Borexino, a large liquid scintillator detector. This document reports on the source production and transportation. The source should exhibit a long lifetime and a high decay energy, a requirement fullfilled by the (144)Ce-(144)Pr pair at secular equilibrium. It will be produced at FSUE “Mayak” PA using spent nuclear fuel. It will then be shielded and packed according t…

Test of the electric charge conservation law with Borexino detector

International audience; The new limit on the electron lifetime is obtained from data of the Borexino experiment. The expected signal from the e → γν decay mode is a 256 keV photon detected in liquid scintillator. Because of the extremely low radioactive background level in the Borexino detector it was possible to improve the previous measurement by two orders of magnitude.

Seasonal Modulation of the $^7$Be Solar Neutrino Rate in Borexino

We detected the seasonal modulation of the $^7$Be neutrino interaction rate with the Borexino detector at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. The period, amplitude, and phase of the observed time evolution of the signal are consistent with its solar origin, and the absence of an annual modulation is rejected at 99.99\% C.L. The data are analyzed using three methods: the sinusoidal fit, the Lomb-Scargle and the Empirical Mode Decomposition techniques, which all yield results in excellent agreement.

CNO and pep solar neutrino measurements and perspectives in Borexino

International audience; The detection of neutrinos emitted in the CNO reactions in the Sun is one of the ambitious goals of Borexino Phase-II. A measurement of CNO neutrinos would be a milestone in astrophysics, and would allow to solve serious issues in current solar models. A precise measurement of the rate of neutrinos from the pep reaction would allow to investigate neutrino oscillations in the MSW transition region. The pep and CNO solar neutrino physics, the measurement in Borexino Phase-I and the perspectives for the new phase are reviewed in this proceeding.

First operation of the KATRIN experiment with tritium

AbstractThe determination of the neutrino mass is one of the major challenges in astroparticle physics today. Direct neutrino mass experiments, based solely on the kinematics of $$\upbeta $$β-decay, provide a largely model-independent probe to the neutrino mass scale. The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment is designed to directly measure the effective electron antineutrino mass with a sensitivity of $$0.2\hbox { eV}$$0.2eV ($$90\%$$90% CL). In this work we report on the first operation of KATRIN with tritium which took place in 2018. During this commissioning phase of the tritium circulation system, excellent agreement of the theoretical prediction with the recorded spectra was …

The liquid-argon scintillation pulseshape in DEAP-3600

AbstractDEAP-3600 is a liquid-argon scintillation detector looking for dark matter. Scintillation events in the liquid argon (LAr) are registered by 255 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), and pulseshape discrimination (PSD) is used to suppress electromagnetic background events. The excellent PSD performance of LAr makes it a viable target for dark matter searches, and the LAr scintillation pulseshape discussed here is the basis of PSD. The observed pulseshape is a combination of LAr scintillation physics with detector effects. We present a model for the pulseshape of electromagnetic background events in the energy region of interest for dark matter searches. The model is composed of (a) LAr scin…

Overview and accomplishments of the Borexino experiment

International audience; The Borexino experiment is running at the Laboratori del Gran Sasso in Italy since 2007. Its technical distinctive feature is the unprecedented ultralow background of the inner scintillating core, which is the basis of the outstanding achievements accumulated by the experiment. In this talk, after recalling the main features of the detector, the impressive solar data gathered so far by the experiment will be summarized, with special emphasis to the most recent and prominent result concerning the detection of the fundamental pp solar neutrino flux, which is the direct probe of the engine mechanism powering our star. Such a milestone measurement puts Borexino in the un…

Geo-neutrino results with Borexino

International audience; Borexino is a liquid scintillator detector primary designed to observe solar neutrinos. Due to its low background level as well as its position in a nuclear free country, Italy, Borexino is also sensitive to geo-neutrinos. Borexino is leading this interdisciplinary field of neutrino geoscience by studying electron antineutrinos which are emitted from the decay of radioactive isotopes present in the crust and the mantle of the Earth. With 2056 days of data taken between December 2007 and March 2015, Borexino observed 77 antineutrino candidates. If we assume a chondritic Th/U mass ratio of 3.9, the number of geo-neutrino events is found to be 23.7(+6.5) (-5.7)(stat) (+…

Recent results from Borexino and the first real time measure of solar pp neutrinos

International audience; The Borexino detector was built starting from 1996 in the underground hall C of Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) in Italy under about 1400 m of rock (3800 m.w.e) and it is mostly aimed to the study in real-time of the low-energy solar neutrinos.Since the beginning of data taking, in May 2007, the unprecedented detector radio-purity made the performances of the detector unique: a milestone has been very recently achieved with the measurement of solar pp neutrino flux, providing the first direct observation in real time of the key fusion reaction powering the Sun.In this contribution the most important Borexino achievements to the fields of solar, geo-neutrino and…

Suppression of Penning discharges between the KATRIN spectrometers

The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN) aims to determine the effective electron (anti)neutrino mass with a sensitivity of $0.2\textrm{ eV/c}^2$ (90$\%$ C.L.) by precisely measuring the endpoint region of the tritium $\beta$-decay spectrum. It uses a tandem of electrostatic spectrometers working as MAC-E (magnetic adiabatic collimation combined with an electrostatic) filters. In the space between the pre-spectrometer and the main spectrometer, an unavoidable Penning trap is created when the superconducting magnet between the two spectrometers, biased at their respective nominal potentials, is energized. The electrons accumulated in this trap can lead to discharges, which create a…

Improved Upper Limit on the Neutrino Mass from a Direct Kinematic Method by KATRIN

We report on the neutrino mass measurement result from the first four-week science run of the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experiment KATRIN in spring 2019. Beta-decay electrons from a high-purity gaseous molecular tritium source are energy analyzed by a high-resolution MAC-E filter. A fit of the integrated electron spectrum over a narrow interval around the kinematic end point at 18.57 keV gives an effective neutrino mass square value of (−1.0−1.1+0.9) eV2. From this, we derive an upper limit of 1.1 eV (90% confidence level) on the absolute mass scale of neutrinos. This value coincides with the KATRIN sensitivity. It improves upon previous mass limits from kinematic measurements by almost a …

Recent Borexino results and prospects for the near future

The Borexino experiment, located in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, is an organic liquid scintillator detector conceived for the real time spectroscopy of low energy solar neutrinos. The data taking campaign phase I (2007 - 2010) has allowed the first independent measurements of 7Be, 8B and pep fluxes as well as the first measurement of anti-neutrinos from the earth. After a purification of the scintillator, Borexino is now in phase II since 2011. We review here the recent results achieved during 2013, concerning the seasonal modulation in the 7Be signal, the study of cosmogenic backgrounds and the updated measurement of geo-neutrinos. We also review the upcoming measurements from phase…

Constraints on partial half-lives of 136Ce and 138Ce double electron captures

The γ-ray emissions from a radiopure cerium-bromide crystal with a mass of 4381 g were measured for a total of 497.4 d by means of high-resolution γ-ray spectrometry in the HADES underground laboratory at a depth of 500 m.w.e. A search for 0/2νεε and 0/2νεβ+ double beta decay transitions of 136Ce and 138Ce was performed using Bayesian analysis techniques. No signals were observed for a total of 35 investigated decay modes. 90% credibility limits were set in the order of 1018–1019 yr. Existing constraints from a cerium oxide powder measurement were tested with a different cerium compound and half-life limits could be improved for most of the decay modes. The most likely accessible decay mode…

Measurement of Solar pp-neutrino flux with Borexino: results and implications

International audience; Measurement of the Solar pp-neutrino flux completed the measurement of Solar neutrino fluxes from the pp-chain of reactions in Borexino experiment. The result is in agreement with the prediction of the Standard Solar Model and the MSW/LMA oscillation scenario. A comparison of the total neutrino flux from the Sun with Solar luminosity in photons provides a test of the stability of the Sun on the 10(5) years time scale, and sets a strong limit on the power production by the unknown energy sources in the Sun.

Borexino’s search for low-energy neutrino and antineutrino signals correlated with gamma-ray bursts

International audience; A search for neutrino and antineutrino events correlated with 2350 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is performed with Borexino data collected between December 2007 and November 2015. No statistically significant excess over background is observed. We look for electron antineutrinos ( ν¯e ) that inverse beta decay on protons with energies from 1.8  MeV to 15  MeV and set the best limit on the neutrino fluence from GRBs below 8  MeV. The signals from neutrinos and antineutrinos from GRBs that scatter on electrons are also searched for, a detection channel made possible by the particularly radio-pure scintillator of Borexino. We obtain currently the best limits on the neutrino f…

Constraints on partial half-lives of Ce136 and Ce138 double electron captures

Understanding the detector behavior through Montecarlo and calibration studies in view of the SOX measurement

International audience; Borexino is an unsegmented neutrino detector operating at LNGS in central Italy. The experiment has shown its performances through its unprecedented accomplishments in the solar and geoneutrino detection. These performances make it an ideal tool to accomplish a state- of-the-art experiment able to test the existence of sterile neutrinos (SOX experiment). For both the solar and the SOX analysis, a good understanding of the detector response is fundamental. Consequently, calibration campaigns with radioactive sources have been performed over the years. The calibration data are of extreme importance to develop an accurate Monte Carlo code. This code is used in all the n…

Gamma-induced background in the KATRIN main spectrometer

The KATRIN experiment aims to measure the effective electron antineutrino mass $$m_{\overline{\nu }_e}$$ mν¯e with a sensitivity of $${0.2}\,{\hbox {eV}/\hbox {c}^2}$$ 0.2eV/c2 using a gaseous tritium source combined with the MAC-E filter technique. A low background rate is crucial to achieving the proposed sensitivity, and dedicated measurements have been performed to study possible sources of background electrons. In this work, we test the hypothesis that gamma radiation from external radioactive sources significantly increases the rate of background events created in the main spectrometer (MS) and observed in the focal-plane detector. Using detailed simulations of the gamma flux in the e…

Low-energy (anti)neutrino physics with Borexino: Neutrinos from the primary proton-proton fusion process in the Sun

The Sun is fueled by a series of nuclear reactions that produce the energy that makes it shine. The primary reaction is the fusion of two protons into a deuteron, a positron and a neutrino. These neutrinos constitute the vast majority of neutrinos reaching Earth, providing us with key information about what goes on at the core of our star. Several experiments have now confirmed the observation of neutrino oscillations by detecting neutrinos from secondary nuclear processes in the Sun; this is the first direct spectral measurement of the neutrinos from the keystone proton-proton fusion. This observation is a crucial step towards the completion of the spectroscopy of pp-chain neutrinos, as we…

High significance measurement of the terrestrial neutrino flux with the Borexino detector

International audience; We review the geoneutrino measurement with Borexino from 2056 days of data taking.

Recent results from Borexino

Journal of Physics Conference Series. - 798, International Conference on Particle Physics and Astrophysics : 10-14 October 2016, Moscow, Russian Federation / proceedings editors: 1. issue: cosmic rays: Arkady Galper (MEPhI, Moscow, Russia) [und 7 andere] 2nd International Conference on Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ICPPA 2016, Moscow, Russia, 11 Oct 2016 - 14 Oct 2016; Bristol : IOP Publ., Journal of Physics Conference Series, 798, 012114 pp. (2017). doi:10.1088/1742-6596/798/1/012114

SOX : short distance neutrino oscillations with Borexino

Abstract The Borexino detector has convincingly shown its outstanding performance in the in the sub-MeV regime through its unprecedented accomplishments in the solar and geo-neutrinos detection, which make it the ideal tool to unambiguously test the long-standing issue of the existence of a sterile neutrino, as suggested by several anomalies: the outputs of the LSND and Miniboone experiments, the results of the source calibration of the two Gallium solar ν experiments, and the recently hinted reactor anomaly. The SOX project will exploit two sources, based on chromium and cerium, which deployed under the experiment will emit two intense beams of ν e (Cr) and ν e ‾ (Ce). Interacting in the a…

Solar neutrino detectors as sterile neutrino hunters

International audience; The large size and the very low radioactive background of solar neutrino detectors such as Borexino at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy offer a unique opportunity to probe the existence of neutrino oscillations into new sterile components by means of carefully designed and well calibrated anti-neutrino and neutrino artificial sources. In this paper we briefly summarise the key elements of the SOX experiment, a program for the search of sterile neutrinos (and other short distance effects) by means of a (144)Ce-(144)Pr anti-neutrino source and, possibly in the medium term future, with a (51)Cr neutrino source.