Science and Technology of a Low-Energy Solar Neutrino Spectrometer (LENS) and Development of the MiniLENS Underground Prototype

A real time low energy spectral measurement of the neutrinos coming from the Sun will give us a greater understanding of energy production in the Sun, and the mechanisms of neutrino mixing. We will, for the first time, measure the solar neutrino spectrum for all solar neutrinos <2MeV in particular pp, Be and CNO neutrinos, be able to compare the solar photon derived energy luminosity (Lï §) to the solar neutrino derived energy luminosity (Lï ®) independent of any solar model, explore dark energy with respect to mass varying neutrinos, and explore CNO abundances in the Sun. These measurements require new technology in Indium loaded scintillators and large scale detector designs, namely increased spatial resolution through a novel scintillation lattice. I will present the advances we are making to these fields at Virginia Tech as well as neutrino science and the physics of the LENS detector.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Physics

Department dc:contributor.department

Physics

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Rountree, Steven Derek

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Raghavan, Ramaswamy

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Piilonen, Leo E.
• Takeuchi, Tatsu
• Pitt, Mark L.
• Vogelaar, R. Bruce

• calibration
• radiation
• Borexino
• metal loaded liquid scintillator
• neutrino physics
• LENS
• scintillation lattice

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05192010-144208

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/27803