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

来自太阳的中微子是研究中微子味道现象和天体物理学的理想之选。太阳提供了纯电子-中微子味道的最大源通量，加上中微子传输中的高物质密度、长基线和低中微子能量。一个新进展的有效工具是比较由中微子和光子分别测量的太阳光度，这可以揭示中微子物理学和天体物理学中的惊喜。只有通过探测包含99.9%通量的低能(2 MeV)太阳中微子，才有可能精确测量太阳中微子的光度。对于实时低能中微子探测的实验挑战，为数不多的答案之一是基于铟的低能太阳中微子光谱仪，LENS。它将独特地提供几乎无背景的完整的太阳中微子光谱图像，使用基于带电电流的中微子探测，具有强大的空间和时间重合标记。该奖项将提供资金，通过相对便宜的原型-迷你镜头-测试镜头概念和技术的方方面面，该原型的长度比例为镜头长度的15%(体积的1/300)，目的是提供对该技术性能的稳健表征。对科学、技术和教育的更广泛影响包括：学生和博士后的参与，他们有机会和渠道进行好奇心和想象力驱动的研究，通过模拟、化学处理和数据采集系统了解世界。学生将获得宝贵的实践经验，使用最先进的仪器。前往金博尔顿地下实验室的便利交通为复杂的地下研究提供了极好的培训。微透镜技术进入了其他领域，为其他领域提供了新的机遇。

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.