19–21 May 2025
University of Pittsburgh
US/Eastern timezone

Enhancing Solar Neutrino Sensitivity with Neutron Tagging

20 May 2025, 14:00
15m
David Lawrence Hall 203, University of Pittsburgh

David Lawrence Hall 203, University of Pittsburgh

Neutrino Physics Neutrino

Speaker

Obada Nairat (The Ohio State University)

Description

Solar neutrinos provide crucial insights into the Sun’s fusion processes and neutrino oscillations in matter. However, detecting them requires effective suppression of backgrounds. One of these is spallation backgrounds—beta decays of unstable isotopes produced by cosmic-ray muons— which pose a major challenge above 6 MeV. We show that neutron tagging, made possible by the recent addition of dissolved gadolinium, provides a powerful new method to identify and reject these backgrounds. This technique is particularly relevant for future shallower detectors like Hyper-Kamiokande and JUNO.

Author

Obada Nairat (The Ohio State University)

Co-authors

Prof. John Beacom Shirley Li (UC Irvine)

Presentation materials

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