Kimballton Laboratory - an underground science and engineering opportunity

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Kimballton Laboratory - an underground
science and engineering opportunity
R. Bruce VogelaarOle MissFeb 8,
2005vogelaar_at_vt.eduVirginia Tech
National and International Underground Science
and EngineeringPrograms have been very
successful and well funded. Need for a new US
underground facility identified by National
Academy of Sciences National Research
Council Nuclear Science Advisory Committee LRP
Major Regional Opportunity
http//www.phys.vt.edu/kimballton
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Deep Underground Science and Engineering
Laboratory (DUSEL) Motivation (a la NSF)

• Geosciences
• Engineering
• Geobiology

• Neutrino Physics
• Dark Matter Search
• Nucleon Decay
• National Security
• Outreach

SN1987a
from EarthLab Report
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Some of the Big Questions

• Evolution of Life Life Under Extreme Conditions
• Can We Obtain a Transparent Earth?
• How do Mineral Deposits Form?
• How do We Make Deep Underground Space?
• What is Dark Matter, Dark Energy?
• Are Neutrinos Their Own Anti-Particles?
• Is the Sun Getting Hotter?
• Are We Being Good Stewards of Water?
• How do Microbes Affect Geo-chemistry?
• Can We Optimize the Exploration and Extraction of
  Earths Resources such as oil?
• etc

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Existing Laboratories

• Principle Laboratories
• Worldwide
• (by decreasing depth)
• Homestake (SD)
• Sudbury (Canada)
• Mont Blanc (France)
• Baksan (Ukraine)
• Gran Sasso (Italy)
• Kamioke (Japan)
• Soudan (MN)
• WIPP (NM)

Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (Canada)
Laboratori Nationale Gran Sasso (Italy)
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Potential Sites
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The Kimballton Mine
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University

• Active limestone mine
• Tractor-trailer drive-in access
• Heart of Appalachian Mountains in Thomas
  Jefferson National Forest
• 30 minutes from Virginia Tech
• owned and operated by Chemical Lime Corporation

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The Valley and Ridge over-thrust structure
reflects intense compression along the proto-
Atlantic Continental margin during the
Alleghenian collision event between North America
and Africa. The collision created the Pangean
super continent some 300 million years ago.
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The break up of Pangea began in the Triassic
Period about 245 million years ago and by the
Jurassic Period continental rifts forming the
Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Ocean basins were
well established.
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Valley and Ridge Topography Reveals Some 300
Million Years of Geological History.
BUTT MOUNTAIN
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The modern Appalachian Mountains are forming by
gentle uplift, rejuvenation and entrenchment of
rivers along the eastern flanks of the Atlantic
Basin.
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Regional Cross
Section Allegheny Plateau
Valley and Ridge
BUTT MTN
Butt Mountain is a large synclinal mountain near
the western edge of the Valley and Ridge. This
region is characterized by linear ridges held up
by tilted strata of resistant sandstone with
limestone and shale in fault line valleys. Access
to outcropping sedimentary strata allows
excellent surface structural control based on
contrasting stratigraphy.This will also prove to
be an asset in designing and exploring
laboratory sites in the subsurface.
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Geology for the Butt Mountain Area, Giles County,
Virginia showing section lines
DIGITAL GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE RADFORD 30X60
MINUTE QUADRANGLE, VIRGINIA AND WEST VIRGINIA
Geology by Mervin J. Bartholomew, Arthur P.
Schultz, Sharon E. Lewis, Robert C. McDowell, and
William S. Henika 2000
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Kimballton Advantages

• local major research university
• excellent climate, power and transportation
• outreach to Appalachia mining communities
• support from local community

• site in sedimentary rock
• environmentally friendly
• short time to first-science
• heterogeneous known geology
• dormant fault
• repeating geologic layers

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Kimballton Interior
Gran Sasso, Hall C
Comparative Size of Super-Kamioka in Japan(100
kTon water)
dimensions in feet
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• Kimballton (limestone) (Bq/kg)
• 40K ? 181, 131
• 226Ra ? 1.20.1, 1.90.2
• 226Th ? 0.60.1, 0.90.2
• Radon concentration
• 222Rn lt 10 Bq/m3

• Gran Sasso (Dolomite rock) (Bq/kg)
• 40K ? 15
• 226Ra ? 5
• 226Th ? 0.3
• Radon concentration
• 222Rn ? 40 70 Bq/m3

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Initial Programs (Facility by April 2005)

• low-level detector development (Naval Research
  Laboratory)
• LENS prototype
• AMADEUS NSF ITR funded VT project
• 100Mo experiment from Duke
• underground Cu electro-forming
• development of remote underground handling
  equipment

concepts for first phase laboratory
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First Detectors - NRL

• Technology transfer from MPIK Gran Sasso
• Low-Background HPGe
• (like GeMPI, SEGA, MEGA, etc.)
• Gas Proportional Counters
• (like Gallex, GNO, etc)

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TYPICAL DUSEL OPTION (7500 ft depth)
Capture ALL science needs in lab concept from the
start. Rock Strengh gt 150MPa Q 23
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DUSEL NSF Process
Stage I - Science Case (joint proposal submitted
Sept 15, 2004) Stage II Site Designs (due
February 28, 2005) Stage III Engineering
Suite of Initial Experiments
Geo/Eng/Bio workshop at Blacksburg, VA Nov 12-14,
2004
Kimballton Team 139 Current Members (and growing)
Duke U Georgia Tech Harvard Iowa State LANL LBL Mich Tech NIST MIT Nav. Res. Lab. NM Tech NCSU ORNL Penn State U Princeton Purdue Temple U Alaska U Arizona U Maryland U Minnisota U Missouri-Rolla U N Carolina U Oklahoma USGS U Tennessee U Toronto U Virginia U Arizona Virginia Tech VC Univ W Virginia U
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APS Neutrino Study (DNP,DPF,DAP,DPB)
1) We recommend, as a high priority, a phased
program of sensitive searches for neutrinoless
nuclear double beta decay 2) We recommend, as a
high priority, a comprehensive U.S. program to
complete our understanding of neutrino mixing, to
determine the character of the neutrino mass
spectrum and to search for CP violation among
neutrinos 3) We recommend development of an
experiment to make precise measurements of the
low-energy neutrinos from the sun. So far, only
the solar neutrinos with relatively high energy,
a small fraction of the total, have been studied
in detail. A precise measurement of the
low-energy neutrino spectrum would test our
understanding of how solar neutrinos change
flavor, probe the fundamental question of whether
the sun shines only through nuclear fusion, and
allow us to predict how bright the sun will be
tens of thousands of years from now.
Ln (inferred from expt)/L 1.4
0.2-0.3(1s)0.7-0.6(3s)
The LENS (low-energy neutrino spectroscopy)
detector can do this at the current depth of the
Kimballton mine!
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Discovery Potential of LE solar Neutrinos

• Physical proof of LMA (compatibility but no
  smoking gun yet)
• Improving precision of ? parameters ?12 ?13 ?m2
• Uncover surprises----
• Sterile Neutrinos
• Non-Standard Interactions
• Nu Magnetic moments
• Validity of CPT
• Hidden sources of energy (other than nuclear
  fusion) in sun?
• Will the sun get hotter in the future?

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Elastic Scattering or Charged Current?(or both?)
Elastic Scattering Cross section well
defined Neutrino energy not defined
Spectrum smeared No reaction tag- signal and bgd
not uniquely separable Good for Strong Line
Source e.g. 7 Be with ultralow bgd
BOREXINO (for 7Be) Future CLEAN/HERON for pp
Tagged Nu Capture CC Cross-section must be
measured with Source Nu energy uniquely defined
Best for spectral information Tag uniquely
separates signal bgd Ideal for resolving
spectrum from multiple sources (the case
at Low Energies) LENS-Sol only
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Low Energy Neutrino Spectroscopy
600 Hz / cell due to In
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Conceptual Design
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Projected Fractional Uncertainties in Measured
Fluxes 16-32 T In (400 T total)
Item pp (S/N4) pp (S/N4) 7Be (S/N10) 7Be (S/N10)
Item 32 T In S5000/5y 16 T In S2500/y 32 T In S2500/y 16 T In S1250/5y
Signal/Bgd Statistics ?S/S 1.55 2.23 2.12 3.0
Coinc. Detection Efficiency ?e/e 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.7
No. of Target Nuclei ?N/N 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
Cross Section (Q value) ?I/I 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3
Cross Section (B(GT)) ?M/M 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8
Total Uncertainty ?f/f 2.5 3.0 2.9 3.6
Cross section calibration done in Russia with
37Ar source in LENS-Cal
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Hyper Scintillation Detector (50 kTons)

• Elementary Particles
• Proton Decay
• Neutrino Physics-Long Baseline beams from
  BNL/Fermilab
• CP violation in Neutrino Sector
• 3-nu mixing ?13
• Hierarchy of Neutrino mass matrix
• Astrophysics of Exploding Stars (Supernovae SN)
• Geophysical Structure and Evolution of the Earth
  via geo neutrinos
• High Red Shift Cosmology
• Detection and Spectroscopy of relic ? bgd from
  past SN
• Proponents
• John Learned, Sandip Pakvasa (U Hawaii)
• Robert Svoboda (LSU)
• Franz Feilitzsch, Lothar Oberauer (TUMunich)
• Kate Scholberg (Duke U)
• Bruce Vogelaar, Mark Pitt, Tatsu Takeuchi, Lay
  Nam Chang, Raju Raghavan (VT)

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LENA (HSD)
Npe 100 / MeV ?
Oberauer, L
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Proton Decay and LENA (HSD)

• p K n
• This decay mode is favoured in SUSY theories
• The primary decay particle K is invisible in
  Water Cherenkov detectors
• Both it and the K-decay particles are visible in
  scintillation detectors
• Better energy resolution further reduces
  background

Oberauer, L
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P -gt K n event structure
T (K) 105 MeV
t (K) 12.8 nsec K -gt m n
(63.5 ) K -gt p p0 (21.2 )
T (m) 152 MeV T (p) 108 MeV
electromagnetic shower
E 135 MeV m -gt
e n n (t 2.2 ms) p -gt m n (T 4
MeV) m -gt e n n (t 2.2 ms)
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• 3 - fold coincidence
• the first 2 events are monoenergetic
• use time- and position correlation
• How well can one separate the
• first two events ?
• ....results of a first Monte-Carlo calculation
  (Oberauer LENA)

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P decay into K and n
m
m
K
K
Signal in LENA (HSD)
Oberauer, L
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• Background
• Rejection
• monoenergetic K- and m-signal
• position correlation
• pulse-shape analysis
• (after correction for
• reconstructed position)

Oberauer, L
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• SuperKamiokande has 170 background events in
  1489 days (efficiency 33 )
• In HSD, this would scale down to a background of
  5 / y and after PSD-analysis this could be
  suppressed in HSD to
• 0.25 / y ! (efficiency 70 )
• A 30 kt detector ( 1034 protons as target)
  would have a sensitivity of t lt a few 1034
  years for the K-decay after 10 years measuring
  time
• The minimal SUSY SU(5) model predicts the K-decay
  mode to be dominant with a partial lifetime
  varying from 1029 y to 1035 y !
• actual best limit from SK t gt 6.7 x 1032 y
  (90 cl)

Oberauer, L
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Galactic Supernova neutrino detection with HSD
Electron Antineutrino spectroscopy
7800
Electron n spectroscopy 65
480
Neutral current interactions info on all
flavours 4000 and 2200
Event rates for a SN type IIa in the galactic
center (10 kpc)
Oberauer, L
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SN ? detection and neutrino oscillations
Modulations in the energy spectrum due to matter
effects in the Earth
Dighe, Keil, Raffelt (2003)
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Preconditions for observation of those modulations

• SN neutrino spectra ne and nm,t are different
• distance L in Earth large enough
• very good statistics
• very good energy resolution

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World Class Physics, Geology, Engineering
Biology near your area join the team.