Collaborative Research: Mini-LENS -- Operation of a Prototype Low-Energy Solar Neutrino Spectrometer Underground

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Neutrinos from the Sun are ideal for studying neutrino-flavor phenomena and astrophysics. The Sun offers the greatest source flux of a pure electron-neutrino flavor coupled with high matter density in neutrino transport, long baseline, and low neutrino energies. An effective tool for new advances compares the luminosity of the Sun separately measured by neutrinos and photons that can uncover surprises in neutrino physics as well as astrophysics. A precision measurement of the neutrino-derived luminosity of the Sun is possible only by the detection of low-energy (2 MeV) solar neutrinos that contain 99.9% of the flux. One of the few answers to the experimental challenge of real-time low-energy neutrino detection is the indium-based Low Energy Solar Neutrino Spectrometer, LENS. It will uniquely provide a nearly background-free complete spectral image of solar neutrinos using Charged-Current-based neutrino detection with powerful tags of space and time coincidences. This award will provide funds to test the LENS concept and technology in all its aspects via a relatively inexpensive prototype - Mini-LENS - at 15% of the length-scale (1/300 the volume) of LENS, with the goal of providing a robust characterization of the performance of the technology. The broader impact on science, technology and education includes: the participation of students and postdocs with opportunities and outlets for curiosity- and imagination-driven research into a physics understanding of the world with simulations, chemical processing, and data acquisition systems. Students will gain valuable hands-on experience working with state-of-the-art instrumentation. Convenient access to the underground laboratory at Kimballton provides excellent training in the intricacies of research underground. The technology of mini-LENS reaches into other realms, and provides new opportunities in other fields.