Measurement of the Neutrino Charged Current Interaction Rate on 13C in Borexino
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UNIVERSITA` DEGLI STUDI DELL'AQUILA Facolt`adi Scienze MM. FF. NN. Scuola di Dottorato di Ricerca in Fisica - XXIV ciclo - A Thesis submitted for the degree of Dottore di Ricerca in Fisica S.S.D. FIS/04. Measurement of the neutrino charged current interaction rate on 13C in Borexino Advisors Dr. Aldo Ianni sezione INFN LNGS Dr. Francesco L. Villante Universit`adell'Aquila e sezione INFN LNGS Tutor Author Prof. Sergio Petrera Chiara Ghiano Universit`ae gruppo collegato INFN de L'Aquila Universit`adell'Aquila e sezione INFN LNGS PhD school coordinator Prof. Michele Nardone Universit`ae gruppo collegato INFN de L'Aquila Academic year 2010/11 2 Contents Abstract 1 Introduction 5 1 Neutrinos and solar physics 11 1.1 Neutrino properties..................................... 11 1.1.1 Neutrinos in the Standard Model......................... 12 1.1.2 Beyond the Standard Model............................ 14 1.1.2.1 Neutrino oscillations.......................... 14 1.1.2.2 Present experimental status....................... 21 1.2 Neutrinos: messangers from the Sun........................... 21 1.2.1 The Standard Solar Model............................ 23 1.2.2 Nuclear reactions in the Sun........................... 25 1.2.3 Solar neutrino fluxes................................ 29 1.2.4 Solar abundance problem............................. 30 1.2.5 Electron neutrino survival probability...................... 32 2 The Borexino Experiment 35 2.1 Overview.......................................... 35 2.2 Location: Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso..................... 36 2.3 Conceptual design of the detector............................ 38 2.4 Neutrino detection in Borexino.............................. 40 2.4.1 Detection reactions................................. 41 2.5 Main components of the detector............................. 46 2.5.1 Structural components............................... 46 2.5.2 The scintillator and buffer properties....................... 51 2.5.3 Purification plants................................. 54 2.6 Background issues in low energy ν detection....................... 57 2.6.1 Intrinsic radioactive contaminants........................ 58 2.6.2 Muons and cosmogenics isotopes......................... 62 2.7 Borexino physics program, results and outlook..................... 63 2.7.1 Solar neutrinos................................... 63 2.7.2 Antineutrinos.................................... 71 2.7.3 The future..................................... 73 3 Data acquisition and event reconstruction 75 3.1 The electronic chain.................................... 75 3.1.1 Inner detector DAQ................................ 77 3.1.2 Outer detector DAQ................................ 80 3.1.3 Trigger system................................... 80 3.2 Data Acquisition...................................... 82 3.3 Software reconstruction.................................. 83 i 3.3.1 Precalibration, clustering and decoding..................... 86 3.3.2 Energy and position reconstruction........................ 88 3.4 Simulation tools...................................... 98 3.5 Calibration with sources.................................. 99 3.5.1 Internal calibrations................................ 100 3.5.2 External calibration................................ 104 4 CC neutrino interactions on 13C in high purity liquid scintillators 107 4.1 The physics case...................................... 108 4.1.1 Neutrinos on Carbon................................ 110 4.1.2 Cross section of ν + 13C reactions........................ 111 4.1.3 Neutrino interactions on 13C........................... 117 4.2 The 8B solar neutrino flux................................. 118 4.2.1 8B neutrino signal................................. 119 4.2.2 Event rate expected in Borexino and Kamland................. 121 4.3 The coincidence detection tecnique............................ 124 4.4 Backgrounds........................................ 125 5 Background sources for the ν CC on 13C interactions rate measurement 127 5.1 Muons and cosmogenic isotopes.............................. 127 5.1.1 Muons....................................... 127 5.1.2 Cosmogenic isotopes................................ 130 5.2 238U-232Th contamination................................. 137 5.2.1 238U-232Th internal contamination........................ 137 5.2.2 External 208Tl................................... 141 5.3 Solar neutrinos....................................... 144 5.4 Expected Background in prompt and delayed windows................. 146 6 Measurement of the neutrino CC interactions rate on 13C in Borexino 147 6.1 Outline........................................... 147 6.2 Event selection technique................................. 147 6.3 Data set definition and livetime.............................. 148 6.3.1 Filter framework and DSTs............................ 149 6.3.2 Water Extraction runs removal.......................... 149 6.3.3 Muons and cosmogenics rejection......................... 151 6.4 Target volume selection.................................. 153 6.5 MonteCarlo simulation and efficiencies.......................... 156 6.6 Expected signal and background rate.......................... 161 6.6.1 Expected and effective signal........................... 161 6.7 Data reduction....................................... 165 6.8 The space-time coincidence technique.......................... 168 6.8.1 Accidental coincidences and multiplicity cut................... 170 6.8.2 The correlated background from cosmogenic isotopes.............. 171 6.9 Selected candidates over 4 MeV............................. 175 6.9.1 Selected candidates................................. 176 Conclusions 181 A Counting Test Facility 183 B Radiopurity contruction requirements 185 C Pictures of the detector 187 ii D The scintillator and buffer properties 191 E Cuts to generate DSTs 203 F Muon Flags 205 G Selected candidates 207 Bibliografy 220 Acknowledgements 221 iii Abstract In this dissertation we report the results of the measurement of the solar neutrino charged-current (CC) interactions rate on 13C in Borexino in a period of 646.95 days of livetime and in a 3.3 m fiducial volume. Borexino is a real-time large-volume liquid scintillator detector installed in the underground halls of Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). The detection strategy for the CC events is based on a space and time correlated signals tagging, where the prompt event is due to the neutrino interaction on 13C with 13N production, and the delayed event by the β+ 13N decay. The proposed detection process has a threshold of 2.22 MeV and a large and well-known cross section. This threshold allows to make a direct measurement of electron neutrinos from 8B in the pp-chain. The small isotopic abundance of 13C (1.07%) limits the number of predicted events in the fiducial volume of Borexino: in the Solar Standard Model and neutrino oscillation framework (LMA-MSW) 2.38±0.33 events/year/100t due to neutrino CC interactions on 13C are expected. The tagging for interactions on 13C is challenging due to the long correlation time related to the 13N mean-life of 862.6 sec. Moreover, the spectrum of 13N decay overlaps with that of 11C which is a main source of background in Borexino. In the analysis presented in this dissertation it is shown that the background for the neutrino CC detection is dominated by cosmogenic nuclei produced by muon spallation, in particular the data have shown some not expected feature of the 11C cosmogenic background: high mutiplicity of muon-induced neutrons with burst production of 11C nuclei. This feature is of particular importance for our study. We show how critical is the radiopurity of the scintillator and the possibility to veto and tag cosmogenic backgrounds. At present our result is limited by the statistic. The present analysis shows the feasibility of such a detection channel in high purity scintillators with kton scale fiducial mass. 1 2 3 And we can take this huge universe and put it inside a very tiny head: you fold it. -Shpongle- 4 Introduction The experimental study of solar neutrinos is one of the main areas of research in neutrino physics. The Sun is a powerful source of electron neutrinos with energy of the order of 1 MeV, produced by weak interactions in the thermonuclear fusion reactions in its core. Thanks to its proximity, our Sun is unique amongst stars for the fact that a large number of its physical properties are known with a high precision. In fact, astronomers have the opportunity to study in detail dynamic processes occurring in the visible outer stellar layers and to record vast spectroscopic data from the solar photosphere. From the astrophysical point of view the Sun is a main-sequence star which is an ideal candidate to prove our ideas of the internal structure of stars. A well understood and tested model can be transferred to other types of stars and to their evolution. Solar neutrino astronomy is interesting for the same reason it is difficult: since neutrino interac- tions with matter is extremely weak, they can reach us from otherwise inaccessible region, where the photons are trapped, permitting us to look inside stars and examine the energetic physical processes that occur in their interiors. In spite of the extremely large flux of solar neutrinos on Earth (∼ 6 · 1010 ν cm−2s−1), the detec- tion of neutrinos is difficult and requires large detectors because of the small neutrino interaction cross-section. These detectors must be placed underground in order to be shielded by rock