Search

The detection of electron antineutrinos produced by natural radioactivity in the Earth could yield important geophysical information. The Kamioka liquid scintillator antineutrino detector (KamLAND) has the sensitivity to detect electron antineutrinos produced by the decay of 238U and 232Th within the Earth. Earth composition models suggest that the radiogenic power from these isotope decays is 16 TW, approximately half of the total measured heat dissipation rate from the Earth. Here we present results from a search for geoneutrinos with KamLAND. Assuming a Th/U mass concentration ratio of 3.9, the 90 per cent confidence interval for the total number of geoneutrinos detected is 4.5 to 54.2. This result is consistent with the central value of 19 predicted by geophysical models. Although our present data have limited statistical power, they nevertheless provide by direct means an upper limit (60 TW) for the radiogenic power of U and Th in the Earth, a quantity that is currently poorly constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous searches for neutrino oscillations with reactor neutrinos have been done only with baselines less than 1 km. The observed neutrino flux was consistent with the expectation and only excluded regions were drawn on the neutrino-oscillation-parameter space. Thus, those experiments played important roles in understanding neutrinos from fission reactors. Based on the knowledge from those experiments, an experiment with about a 180 km baseline became possible. Results obtained from this baseline experiment showed evidence for reactor neutrino disappearance and finally provide a resolution for the long standing solar neutrino problem when combined with results from the solar neutrino experiments. Several possibilities to explore the last unmeasured mixing angle θ13 with reactor neutrinos have recently been proposed. They will provide complementary information to long baseline accelerator experiments when one tries to solve the degeneracy of oscillation parameters. Reactor neutrinos are also useful to study the neutrino magnetic moment and the most stringent limits from terrestrial experiments are obtained by measuring the elastic scattering cross section of reactor neutrinos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]