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T C R E: HE Owan Eines Xperiment
T C R E: HE Owan Eines Xperiment
Mihirkumar S Tripathi
DNAP
Integrated PhD
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
HISTORY
oThe project started in 1951 with name Project Poltergeist, it took 6 years to
achieve successful results, Dr Reines was honored with Nobel prize in 1995
for the experiment , unfortunately Dr Cowan died in 1974.
Ѵ + p+1 n0 + e+1
The emitted positron would the go through annihilation with electron and
produce gamma rays which will produce flashes of light which will be “seen” by
photomultiplier tubes in Detector.
Inorder to get sufficient inverse beta decay processes a huge Neutrino flux
and also a proton reach material was needed to act as absorbing medium for
neutrinos.
Newly developed nuclear reactor at Savannah River site in USA was used to
provide the required Neutrino flux ( of about 1013 neutrino/S*cm2)
Water was used as proton reach detecting material , it had small amount of
dissolved CdCl2 which was used to employ a new detecting technique called
delayed coincidence.
As shown in figure an antineutrino emitted from reactor interacts with proton
and produces a positron(1-5MeV) and neutron (~10KeV) , the positron then
annihilates with an electron giving two 0.511MeV Gamma rays which is then
followed by 3 high energy gamma rays by neutron capture in Cd( ~totaling 9
MeV) within a few microseconds. This two signals coming one after the other
provided a signature for neutrino induced decay.
•The figure shows illustration of detector , coated in
lead – paraffin shield, it consist of 5 main components.
•The three blocks (I), (II) and (III) are steel tanks filled
with liquid scintillators ( Tri ethyl benzene, terphynyle,
POPOP wavelength shifter – 1400 litters), each has
110 PMT (5 inch) to detect scintillations .
•The detector was put near a Nuclear reactor The Savannah River neutrino detector. Source: Reines,
et al., ‘‘Detection of the Free Neutrino’’
separated by 11 m thick concrete wall to shield it from (ref. 24), Figure 2; copyright 1960 by the American
•The signal is passed through positron energy discriminator and then to positron prompt
coincidence circuit.
•If delay time between two signals is less then given time (Resolving time of equipment
~0.2 μ Second) then it accepts the signal and switches on the Neutron capture signal
detection circuit .
DELAYED COINCIDENCE SIGNAL DETECTION
•The second circuit stays on for specified time ( here 3 μSeconds) and if signals of
neutron capture corresponding to specified frequency is observed within that time it
is accepted as neutron capture signal
•After that both signals which are in delay circuits are presented to triple beam
oscilloscopes.
OSCILLOSCOPE TRACES FROM SAVANNAH RIVER EXPERIMENT
• With signal to reactor associated background ratio of 20/1 and signal to reactor
independent background ratio of 3/1.
• Changing half of the light water in detector tanks with heavy water (deuteron
having smaller cross section) reduced signal rate by half ,but it did not affect the
neutron capture efficiency.
• Both positron annihilation pulses and Neutron capture pulses were checked with
predetermined energy and removal of cadmium from water resulted in
disappearance of reactor signal.
• Thus it was demonstrated that free neutrino are observable in near vicinity
of Nuclear reactors.
SOURCES AND REFERENCES
1) F. Reines and C. Cowan jun. Nature volume178, pages446–449 (01 Septembre 1956)
Link : https://www.nature.com/articles/178446a0.ris
2) Detection of the Free Neutrino F. Reines and C. L. Cowan, Jr. Phys. Rev. 92, 830 1
November 1953
Link : https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.92.830