Department №40

More about Borexino experiment

Pic. Schematic view of the Borexino detector

Borexino mega-project which is carried out by the collaboration of several European countries, Russia and USA in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (Italy), aims to perform basic researches in the fields of neutrino and particle physics as well as interdisciplinary studies for solving the mainstream tasks of the astrophysics, atomic industry, geo-sciences. It is more then one hundred physicists from the leading scientific centers which participate in the Borexino. From the Russian research institutes the responsible organization is National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute”.

Borexino is a multipurpose scintillation (anti)neutrino detector with the target mass of 300 t. Data-taking has started in 2007 and is currently ongoing. The main goal of the experiment is the study of the solar electron neutrinos flux in the low energy region (lower than 1 MeV). Electron neutrinos are detected through their scattering off electrons of the scintillator’s atoms. Major feature of the detector is an unprecedentedly high radiopurity of the scintillator and detector’s materials. Thanks to that, the energy threshold for the neutrino detections is as low as 100 keV.

The following global impact results were obtained with the Borexino:

Borexino is equipped with an auxiliary, independent data-taking system based on Fast WaveForm Digitizers (FWFD). It was implemented by Kurchatov Institute experts to extend the range of the spectroscopic measurements by Borexino into the inaccessible for the main electronics area up to ~60 MeV. The system allows solving the following tasks:

Thanks to implementation of this Russian project in the Borexino, the detector becomes unique in its studies of not only neutrinos from the Sun and terrestrial sources, but from the galactic and extragalactic neutrino sources as well (Supernovas, Gamma-ray Bursts, primordial black holes clusters and others).

Contact Person:

Skorohvatov Mikhail