ORLaND_— Oak Ridge Laboratory for Neutrino Detectors

The proposed Oak Ridge Laboratory for Neutrino Detectors (ORLaND), to be located adjacent to the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), is described. ORLaND will take advantage of the fact that the SNS will be the world’s best intermediate-energy pulsed neutrino source in the world. A broad range of neutrino measurements is contemplated by means of a number of detectors, including the large CoNDOR detector. Specifics of neutrino oscillation investigations, and of the possible impact of certain neutrino measurements on our understanding of supernova explosions, are discussed.     

ORLaND: A proposed neutrino facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, USA, ORLaND is a collaboration proposing a major neutrino physics facility at the Spallation Neutrino Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. An underground bunker is proposed adjacent to the first target station of the SNS. The bunker is designed to house one large detector (2000 t) and a number of smaller (200 t) detectors. A comprehensive program of neutrino experiments is being developed that could span the lifetime of the Spallation Source. From Yadernaya Fizika, Vol. 63, No. 6, 2000, pp. 1082–1086. Original English Text Copyright ? 2000 by Avignone III, Anderso, Awes, Berridge, Bilpuch, Britton, Bryan, Bugg, Burman, Busenitz, Carter, Chatterjee, Cianciolo, Cochran, Cohn, Danilov, De-Brackeleer, Degtiarenko, Efremenko, Elaasar, Fazely, Frank, Gabriel, Gould, Gudkov, Gunasingha, Handler, Hart, Imlay, Jagadish, Kamyshkov, Khosrovi, Koetke, Lane, Manweiler, Metcalf, Mezzacappa, Mo, Nosik, Nummaker, Nussinov, Piepke, Plasil, Reidy, Rosenfeld, Smith, Stancu, Stanislaus, Steinberg, Svoboda, Tashakkori, Tornow, Van Dalen, Walker, Watson, Wintenberg, Wolf, Wright, Zel’dovich, Zhang. This article was submitted by the authors in English.     

Scientific Review: New Opportunities for Data Analysis Software: An International Collaboration

On three continents major new neutron scattering facilities are under construction that will provide unprecedented opportunities for scientific discovery. The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) under construction at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will become operational in 2006, the Japanese Spallation Source is planned for completion in 2007, and the second target station at ISIS is due to come on-line in 2008. All three will be equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, large detector arrays and, with the associated increases in flux, will deliver orders of magnitude increases in data volume. Current data visualization and analysis software will be seriously challenged to keep pace with these changes.     

News and Reports: Staff Relocate to SNS Site

In June 2004, the Spallation Neutron Source staff relocated to the Central Laboratory &Office (CLO) Building at the construction site on Chestnut Ridge at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The CLO contains 23,000 m2 of space for more than 400 staff and users. In addition to office space, the CLO will contain large shop areas, conference and training rooms, a receiving department, the central control room, and large spaces for laboratories-all dedicated to the scientific mission of the SNS. Complete occupancy will occur in fall 2004.     

2011 U.S. National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering

The 13^th annual U.S. National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering was held June 11-25, 2011, at both Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories. This school brought together 65 early career graduate students from 56 different universities in the United States and provided them with a broad introduction to the properties and techniques available at the major large-scale neutron and synchrotron X-ray facilities. This school is focused primarily on techniques relevant to the physical sciences, but also touches on cross-disciplinary bio-related scattering measurements. During the school, the students received lectures by more than 30 researchers from academia, industry, and national laboratories and participated in a number of short demonstration experiments at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source (APS) and Oak Ridge's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) facilities to get hands-on experience in using neutron and synchrotron sources.     

Forty Years to the Artemovsk Scintillation Detector for Neutrinos

The current status of the ASD (Artemovsk scintillation detector) experiment aimed at search for a neutrino flux from gravitational collapses of stellar cores is presented. Experimental data obtained for 40 years of operation of the detector situated in a salt mine at a depth of 570 mwe are processed. The results obtained by calculating the expected signal in the detector on the basis of two models of supernova explosion are described. No candidates for neutrino bursts from gravitational star collapses have been revealed: the limit on the frequency of gravitational collapses was found to be less than one event per 17.15 yr at a 90% confidence level (f_col < 0.058 yr^?1).     

Limits on neutrino emission from gamma-ray bursts with the 40 string IceCube detector

IceCube has become the first neutrino telescope with a sensitivity below the TeV neutrino flux predicted from gamma-ray bursts if gamma-ray bursts are responsible for the observed cosmic-ray flux above 10(18) eV. Two separate analyses using the half-complete IceCube detector, one a dedicated search for neutrinos from pγ interactions in the prompt phase of the gamma-ray burst fireball and the other a generic search for any neutrino emission from these sources over a wide range of energies and emission times, produced no evidence for neutrino emission, excluding prevailing models at 90% confidence.     

Development of ADS virtual accelerator based on XAL

XAL is a high level accelerator application framework that was originally developed by the Spallation Neutron Source(SNS), Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It has an advanced design concept and has been adopted by many international accelerator laboratories. Adopting XAL for ADS is a key subject in the long term. This paper will present the modifications to the original XAL applications for ADS. The work includes a proper relational database schema modification in order to better suit the requirements of ADS configuration data, redesigning and re-implementing db2 xal application, and modifying the virtual accelerator application. In addition, the new device types and new device attributes for ADS online modeling purpose are also described here.     

Update of results from the SuperKamiokande detector (June 1999)

The data collected in the SuperKamiokande detector as of June 1999 are presented. This review covers the complete spectrum of neutrino interactions from solar neutrinos, through the entire spectrum of atmospheric neutrinos, and ending with the neutrino beam produced at KEK for a long-baseline experiment. Different interpretations of these data as demonstrations of neutrino oscillations are discussed. The results of a search for nucleon decay are also summarized.     

Experiment for search for sterile neutrino at SM-3 reactor

In connection with the question of possible existence of sterile neutrino the laboratory on the basis of SM-3 reactor was created to search for oscillations of reactor antineutrino. A prototype of a neutrino detector with scintillator volume of 400 l can be moved at the distance of 6–11 m from the reactor core. The measurements of background conditions have been made. It is shown that the main experimental problem is associated with cosmic radiation background. Test measurements of dependence of a reactor antineutrino flux on the distance from a reactor core have been made. The prospects of search for oscillations of reactor antineutrino at short distances are discussed.     

Status and first results of the ANTARES neutrino telescope

The ANTARES detector is the most sensitive neutrino telescope observing the southern sky and the world’s first particle detector operating in the deep sea. It is installed in the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 2475 m. As example for the first results, the determination of the atmospheric muon flux is discussed; a fair agreement with previous measurements is found. Furthermore, the results of a search for high-energy events in excess of the atmospheric neutrino flux are reported and significant limits are set on the diffuse cosmic neutrino flux in the multi-TeV to PeV energy range. Using data taken during the construction phase, a first analysis searching for point-like excesses in the neutrino sky distribution has been performed. The resulting sensitivity of ANTARES is reported and compared to measurements of other detectors.     

The Baikal Neutrino Telescope

We review the present status of the Baikal Neutrino Experiment and present results of a search for upward-going atmospheric neutrinos and magnetic monopoles obtained with the detector NT200. The results of a search for very high energy neutrinos are presented and an upper limit on the extraterrestrial diffuse neutrino flux is obtained. We describe the strategy of upgrading the NT200 to NT200+ and creating a detector on the Gigaton scale at Lake Baikal. The first results obtained with the new NT200+ detector as a basic cell of a future Gigaton detector are presented. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Absence of a day-night asymmetry in the Be solar neutrino rate in Borexino

We report the result of a search for a day-night asymmetry in the ⁷Be solar neutrino interaction rate in the Borexino detector at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. The measured asymmetry is Adn=0.001±0.012 (stat)±0.007 (syst), in agreement with the prediction of MSW-LMA solution for neutrino oscillations. This result disfavors MSW oscillations with mixing parameters in the LOW region at more than 8.5 σ. This region is, for the first time, strongly disfavored without the use of reactor anti-neutrino data and therefore the assumption of CPT symmetry. The result can also be used to constrain some neutrino oscillation scenarios involving new physics.     

The nEDM experiment at the SNS

The nEDM collaboration proposes to measure the neutron electric dipole moment at the Spallation Neutron Source (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). The nEDM is a clear signature of CP violation. According to the Standard Model the nEDM is very small (～10^?31 e cm), but many theories predict much higher values. In the proposed experiment polarized cold neutrons from the SNS would be trapped in liquid helium at a temperature of about 400 mK. The neutron spin would precess in a very uniform magnetic field (H ～ 30 mG), and the experiment would measure the change in the precession frequency when a very strong electric field (E ～ 50 kV/cm) is applied. Polarized ³He atoms serve as a co-magnetometer. The goal of the experiment is to measure the nEDM with an accuracy of ～9 × 10^?28 e cm, which is more than an order of magnitude better than existing results.     

IceCube Neutrinos: from Oscillations to PeV-Energy Events

With IceCube and its low-energy extension DeepCore, a neutrino detector with an energy reach from tens of gigaelectronvolt to exaelectronvolt has been commissioned. It measures the atmospheric neutrino spectrum from the lower energies where neutrinos oscillate to energies as large as 100 TeV with a statistic of more than 100,000 events per year. The initial results suggest that IceCube can measure the oscillation parameters in an energy range that exceeds existing observations by 1 order of magnitude, thus opening a new window on neutrino physics. We emphasize the search for sterile neutrinos particularly relevant to cosmology. We also discuss the first observation of (PEV) petaelectronvolt-Energy events that cannot be accommodated by the flux anticipated by extrapolation of the present atmospheric neutrino measurements.     

Neutrino physics with cryogenic detectors

The recent results on neutrino oscillations and the consequent need to measure the value of the neutrino mass are briefly discussed. The operating principle of cryogenic detectors working at low temperatures, where the small heat capacity allows one to record and measure the temperature increase due to the tiny energy lost by a particle in form of heat is described. An application of these detectors is the measurement, or at least an upper constraint, of the neutrino mass in β decay. This approach is complementary and can, in the future, be competitive with experiments based on the spectrometric measurement of the electron energy. The search for neutrinoless double beta decay could reach a better sensitivity on the mass if a neutrino is a Majorana particle. A large cryogenic detector, named CUORICINO, on neutrinoless double beta decay (DBD) of ¹³⁰Te already yields the best constraint on the absolute value of the Majorana neutrino mass. A much larger detector, named CUORE, for Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events, is currently under construction. With its active mass of 750 kg of natural TeO₂ it aims to reach the sensitivity in the determination of the Majorana neutrino mass suggested by the results of neutrino oscillation under the inverse hierarchy hypothesis. The problem is closely connected with what I call “the second mystery of Ettore Majorana” who suggested a particle that would violate the lepton number.     

Atmospheric Neutrinos as a Tool for Exploring the Earth’s Inner Parts

Investigation of the Earth’s inner parts requires developing new methods. It is well known that atmospheric neutrinos traverse the Earth, undergoing virtually no interaction. The change in the neutrino flux is due exclusively to neutrino oscillations, which are enhanced by the effect of Earth’s matter. At the present time, there are two projects outside Russia (PINGU and ORCA) that are aimed at detecting atmospheric neutrinos that traversed the Earth, which are supposed to be used for purposes of Earth’s tomography. The creation of a large neutrino detector on the basis of a liquid scintillator is planned at the BaksanNeutrino Observatory (Institute for Nuclear Research, Russian Academy of Sciences) in the North Caucasus. After testing this detector, there will arise the possibility of employing it as part of the worldwide network of neutrino detectors for studying the Earth’s inner parts.     

Large-volume detector at the Baksan Neutrino Observatory for studies of natural neutrino fluxes for purposes of geo- and astrophysics

At the Baksan Neutrino Observatory (Institute for Nuclear Research, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) deployed in the Caucasus mountains, it is proposed to create, at a depth corresponding to 4760 mwe, a large-volume neutrino detector on the basis of a liquid scintillator with a target mass of 10 kt. The detector in question is intended for recording natural fluxes of neutrinos whose energy may be as low as 100MeV. Neutrino fluxes from various sources are considered in the present study, and the expected effect in the proposed detector is estimated. The detector hat is being developed at the Baksan Neutrino Observatorywill become part of the world network of neutrino detectors for studying natural neutrino fluxes.     

Recent Results from the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope

The ANTARES detector, located 40 km off the French coast, is the largest deep-sea neutrino telescope in the world. It consists of an array of 885 photomultipliers detecting the Cherenkov light induced by charged leptons produced by neutrino interactions in and around the detector. The primary goal of ANTARES is to search for astrophysical neutrinos in the TeV–PeV range. This comprises generic searches for any diffuse cosmic neutrino flux as well as more specific searches for astrophysical sources such as active galactic nuclei or galactic sources. The search program also includes multi-messenger analyses based on time and/or space coincidences with other cosmic probes. The ANTARES observatory is sensitive to a wide range of other phenomena, from atmospheric neutrino oscillations to dark matter annihilation or potential exotics such as nuclearites and magnetic monopoles. The most recent results are reported.