Geo- and reactor antineutrino sensitivity at THEIA

Stephane Zsoldos; Zara Bagdasarian; Gabriel D. Orebi Gann; Andrew Barna; Stephen Dye

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-11106-1

2022 Impact factor 4.4

Particles and Fields

Open Access

Eur. Phys. J. C (2022) 82: 1151
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-11106-1

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Geo- and reactor antineutrino sensitivity at THEIA

Stephane Zsoldos¹^,2^,4^,5, Zara Bagdasarian¹^,2^b, Gabriel D. Orebi Gann¹^,2, Andrew Barna³ and Stephen Dye³

¹ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
² Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, 94720-8153, Berkeley, CA, USA
³ University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, 96822, Honolulu, HI, USA
⁴ King’s College of London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
⁵ University of Tokyo Kavli Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, 277-8583, 5 Chome-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan

^b zara.bagdasarian@gmail.com

Received: 25 April 2022
Accepted: 5 December 2022
Published online: 20 December 2022

Abstract

We present the sensitivity of the Theia experiment to low-energy geo- and reactor antineutrinos. For this study, we consider one of the possible proposed designs, a 17.8-ktonne fiducial volume Theia-25 detector filled with water-based liquid scintillator placed at Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). We demonstrate Theia’s sensitivity to measure the geo- and reactor antineutrinos via inverse-beta decay interactions after one year of data taking with free target protons. Considering all uncertainties on input throughout the whole analysis chain, the expected number of geo- and reactor antineutrinos is (stats+syst) and (stat+sys), respectively, after one year of data taking. The corresponding expected fit precision of a sole experiment is evaluated at 8.7% and 10.1%, respectively. We also demonstrate the sensitivity towards fitting individual Th and U contributions, with best fit values of (stat+sys) and (stat+sys). Finally, from the fit results of individual Th and U contributions, we evaluate the mantle signal to be NIU (stat+sys). This was obtained assuming a full-range positive correlation () between Th and U, and the projected uncertainties on the crust contributions of 8.3% (Th) and 7.0% (U).

© The Author(s) 2022

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