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Extending Physics Potential of Large Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detectors

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Extending Physics Potential of Large Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detectors Department of Physics University of Jyväskylä Research Report No. 14/2016 Extending Physics Potential of Large Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detectors by Kai Loo Academic Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy To be presented, by permission of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Jyväskylä, for public examination in Auditorium FYS 1 of the University of Jyväskylä on 16th December, 2016 at 12 o’clock noon Jyväskylä, Finland December 2016 Preface The work presented in this theses has been carried out at the Department of Physics of University of Jyväskylä as a contribution to the pan-European LAGUNA and LAGUNA-LBNO Desing Studies during the years 20010 to 2014. First I would first address my gratitude to my supervisors Doc. Wladyslaw Trzaska and Professor Jukka Maalampi for the guidance and for giving me an opportunity to work in rapidly developing international project. All the work, I have done, has been team work. I want to thank Prof. Michael Wurm for steering the liquid scintillator physics working group within the LAGUNA-LBNO project and all the members of that group, especially Dr. Dominikus Hellgartner, Dr. Randolph Möllenberg, Dr. Björn Wonsak and Dr. Sebastian Lorenz, being my closest collaborators. I would also like to express my gratitude to Prof. emeritus Franz von Feilitzch, Prof. Lothar Oberauer, Prof. Achim Stahl and Prof. Caren Hagner for sharing their expertise and support for the liquid scintillator working group. The local team, the underground physics research group in Pyhäsalmi, deserves to be acknowledged as well. The Pyh¨salmimine has offered an extraordinary environment to widen my scientific perspective, to conduct some practical work where the progress is clearly visible, and work in totally different "laboratory" conditions compared to any other laboratory I know. Especially, I want to thank Dr. Timo Enqvist organising the first funding at the beginning of my doctoral studies and steering me towards the scientific carrier. To the group members Mr. Maciej Slupecki, Mr. Tuomo Kalliokoski, Mr. Jukka Sorjonen from University of Jyväskylä, Dr. Pasi Kuusiniemi, Dr. Tomi Räihä, Dr. Juho Sarkamo and Mr. Jari Joutsenvaara, Ms. Katja Mankinen, from University of Oulu and Mr. Antto Virkajärvi from Lappeeranta Technical University, it has been pleasure to work, but also spend free time, with the people like you. I want also express my gratitude to Dr. Marko Aittola and Mrs. Johanna Kutuniva, especially for all the discussions during the darkest hours of the nights, but also for the efforts they have made during the LAGUNA project. I would like to thank our Russian collaborators, especially Dr. Leonid Bezrukov, Dr. Bayarto Lubsandorzhiev and Dr. Lev Inzhechik for their ideas and valuable contributions to the EMMA experiment and the upcoming C14 experiment in the Pyhäsalmi mine and the Muon Monitor experiment in Canfranc laboratory in Spain, as well as, Prof. Yuri Novikov and Dr. Mikhail Smirnov for our effort on neutrino oscillometry studies. i ii Finally, I would like to thank my parents for all the support and encouragement throughout my life and my friends, especially Mr. Jari Karjalainen, Mrs. Anna-Kaisa Tuomaala, Mr. Jukka Luomajoki and Mr. Teemu Nyländen for reminding me every now and then, that there might be life outside the office. Jyväskylä, December 2016 Kai Loo iii Author Kai Loo Department of Physics University of Jyväskylä Finland Supervisors Dr. Wladyslaw Trzaska Department of Physics University of Jyväskylä Finland Prof. Jukka Maalampi Department of Physics University of Jyväskylä Finland Reviewers Prof. Dr. Livia Ludhova III. Physikalisches Institut B RWTH Aachen University Germany Dr. Sandra Zavatarelli Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare- Sezione di Genova Italy Opponent Prof. Seon-Hee Seo Department of Physics and Astronomy Seoul National University Korea Acknowledgements This work has been supported by EU within the FP7 Design Studies LAGUNA (Grant Agreement No. 212343 FP7-INFRA-2007-1) and LAGUNA-LBNO (Grant Agreement No. 284518 FP7- INFRA-2011-1). The author of this work expresses gratitude for the financial support from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the rector of the University of Jyväskylä. The Graduate School in Particle and Nuclear Physics (GRASPANP), Magnus Ehrnrooth Foudation and Kerttu Saalasti Foundation is acknowledged for financing the travelling to various conferences and schools. The CSC IT Center for Science in Espoo, Finland is acknowledged for allocation of sufficient computing resources. v Contents List of Tables xi List of Figures xiii 1. Introduction 1 I. Physics & Phenomenology 5 2. Neutrinos in Standard Model 7 2.1. Standard Model of Particle Physics . .7 2.2. Neutrinos . .8 2.3. Neutrino Interactions . .9 2.3.1. Weak Interactions . .9 2.3.2. Interactions of Low-energy Neutrinos . 11 2.3.3. Interactions of High-Energy Neutrinos . 15 3. Sources of Neutrinos 17 3.1. Radioactive Decays . 18 3.2. Fission and Fusion Processes . 18 3.3. Neutrinos from Astrophysical Sources . 19 3.3.1. Supernova Neutrinos . 20 3.3.2. Atmospheric Neutrinos . 22 3.3.3. Ultra-high Energy Neutrinos . 24 3.4. Accelerator-based Neutrino Beams . 27 4. Neutrino Oscillations 33 4.1. Neutrino Mixing . 33 4.2. Determination of Mass Hierarchy . 38 4.2.1. Reactor Neutrinos . 40 4.2.2. Atmospheric Neutrinos . 42 4.2.3. Long Baseline Neutrino Beam . 45 4.2.4. Other Indications of Mass Ordering . 47 4.3. Observation of CP-violation with Neutrinos . 49 4.3.1. Long Baseline Neutrino Beam Experiment . 49 4.3.2. Short-baseline Experiment with Low-Energy Neutrinos . 51 vii viii Contents 4.4. Search for Sterile Neutrinos . 52 4.4.1. Proposed experiments . 57 II. Liquid Scintillator Technique 63 5. Liquid Scintillator Technique in Neutrino Physics 65 5.1. Detection Principle . 65 5.2. Signals of Neutrino Interactions in Liquid Scintillators . 66 5.2.1. Low-energy Neutrinos . 68 5.2.2. High-Energy Neutrinos . 69 5.3. Background Sources . 70 5.4. Major Achievements and Future of LS Technique . 72 6. LENA Project 75 6.1. Detector Setup . 75 6.2. Physics Program . 78 6.2.1. Solar Neutrinos . 78 6.2.2. Supernova Neutrinos . 80 6.2.3. Geoneutrinos . 82 6.2.4. Atmospheric Neutrinos . 83 6.2.5. Proton decay . 84 6.2.6. Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillations . 84 6.3. LENA Simulation Framework . 85 III. Studies Related to LENA 91 7. Reactor Neutrino Background 93 7.1. Reactor neutrino flux calculation . 94 7.1.1. Neutrino Production in Nuclear Fission Reactor . 94 7.1.2. Event Rate . 98 7.1.3. Event rates at LAGUNA sites . 100 7.2. Future Background Conditions at the Pyhäsalmi mine . 101 8. Detection of Geoneutrinos 107 8.1. Detection Method of Geoneutrinos . 110 8.2. Experimental Status . 111 8.3. Estimation of the Geoneutrino Flux in the Pyhäsalmi Mine . 115 8.4. Prospects of Geoneutrino Measurements with LENA . 116 Contents ix 9. Detection of Sterile Neutrinos with LENA 123 9.1. Experimental Scheme for LENA . 123 9.1.1. Sources of Background . 126 9.2. Simulations and Analysis . 128 9.3. Results . 129 9.3.1. Simple Event Rate Analysis . 129 9.3.2. Spectral analysis . 131 9.3.3. Sensitivity reach with Spherical Detector . 133 10.Flavor Discrimination with Elementary Tracking 137 10.1. Signatures of Electron and Muon Events . 137 10.2. Search for the Origin of the Observed Light . 140 10.3. Simulation . 142 10.3.1. Parameter Extraction . 142 10.4. Discrimination Based on Extracted Event Length . 146 10.5. Conclusions . 152 11.Study of Leptonic CP-violation in Daeδalus and LENA-type Detectors 155 11.1. Basic Scheme of Daeδalus Approach . 155 11.2. Neutrino production . 158 11.3. Neutrino Detection . 158 11.4. The Background Signals . 160 11.4.1. Electron Antineutrino Background . 160 11.4.2. Other Backgrounds . 161 11.5. Simulation and Results . 162 12.Summary of the Thesis and Outlook 169 A. List of Author’s Publications and Presentions 171 List of Tables 3.1. Critical energies of various particles. 24 3.2. Summary of current conventional neutrino beams . 28 4.1. Measured values of the oscillation parameters. 36 4.2. Overview of the current double beta decay experiments and R&D projects 48 4.3. 3+1 sterile neutrino fits to the experimental data. 57 5.1. The photon emission parameters for Linear-Alkyl-Bentzene (LAB). 67 6.1. Overview of the basic properties of Linear-Alkyl-Benzene (LAB). 76 6.2. Expected solar neutrino rates in LENA. 80 6.3. Expected event rates in LENA for neutrinos originating in a supernova at a distance of 10 kpc. 82 6.4. The nucleon decay channels probed by Super-Kamiokande experiment. 84 7.1. The results for θ13 from reactor neutrino experiments. 94 7.2. Energy released per fission from reactor fuel isotopes . 94 7.3. The fractions of the fissions for the neutrino producing isotopes in different reactor types. 96 7.4. Coefficients for parameterisation of energy spectra of reactor neutrinos. 97 7.5. Calculated reactor neutrino events in units of TNU in different under- ground locations. 100 7.6. Uncertainties entering to the error estimation of reactor background event rate. 102 8.1. The three main radioactive isotopes in the Earth producing electron antineutrinos via β-decays. 107 8.2. Predicted geoneutrino rates from U + Th at various locations. 117 8.3. The fluxes of different geoneutrino components (U, Th, K) from different reservoirs of the Earth. 118 9.1. The event rates of neutrinos and antineutrinos from a 51Cr and 144Ce- 144Pr source, respectively, for given exposure times. 130 10.1. Number of fully contained simulated events in different energy categories entering to our analysis. 144 xi xii List of Tables 11.1. The effect of different acceptance cuts of the inverse β decay to the background events from neutral current interactions of atmospheric neutrinos and fast neutrons.
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