Dear members of the Board
and the Council of Advise,
Attached you find as a pdf-file
a report on the Applied Antineutrino Physics Workshop
held in Paris on 13 and 14 December 2007. The workshop
shows that the field has recognised the need to develop
direction sensitive, low-energy antineutrino detectors
as well as new technologies, items that Stichting EARTH
has been advocating over the last years. As we indicated
two years ago antineutrino detection may be a
complementary tool to monitor the burn-up in
nuclear-power plants, illicit removal of weapon-grade
materials and nuclear explosives. At the workshop
representatives of the IAEA and CTBT were present to
express their interest in the development of the field.
In this e-mail I like to
update you on the major events of 2007: In March a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between
Stichting EARTH, the three universities in Cape and the
South African National Research Institute iThemba LABS.
The MoU formalises the intention to jointly develop the
next stage detector for antineutrinos called GiZA (Geoneutrinos
in ZA). It will be a tetrahedron-shaped detector with
Photon detectors at each of the four corners. After
testing at iThemba LABS the GiZA detector will be moved
to the nuclear power plant at Koeberg, 25km north of
Cape Town. As part of the MoU, collaboration meetings
were held in July and December. In March, April and May
visits were made to Finland and Italy to extend the
EARTH collaboration. Although the talks were held in a
positive atmosphere no direct collaborations were
started. This partly due to the foreseen nature of the
collaboration: background measurements in an underground
laboratory (foreseen for 2009) and to the lack of
possibilities to participate in the near-future detector
development work. In Paris the French researchers,
working at the reactor of Chooz expressed the wish for
closer collaboration. This avenue will be explored
further in 2008. The main objective of the GiZA tests at
Koeberg is to characterise the signals of the positron
and "neutron" formed in the antineutrinocapture by a
proton. For this goal we aim at using the fastest
digital pulse analyser, commercially available on the
market. Work at Groningen has shown that, under ideal
circumstances, time differences up to 10 nanosecond can
be measured with a thousand times better precision (10
picosecond [ps]). With a more realistic precision of 50
ps for light pulses generated in our GiZA detector we
will achieve a position resolution of about 1 cm,
derived from the arrival-time differences and intensity
differences of the light at the photon detectors. If
successful this will mean a breakthrough in our aim to
reach direction sensitivity. In preparation for the GiZA
detector ASTRON carried out light-ray simulations for a
number of detector designs. It has helped us
tremendously and, being almost completed, it looks that
we will be able to find a solution that provides us with
excellent timing and at the same time a 20-fold increase
in photon-collection efficiency, compared to the
original design. In South Africa the partners seem to be
able to collect sufficient funding to finance their part
of the project: the purchase of the required
electronics. A bid at the National Research Foundation
of South Africa was unfortunately unsuccessful, but the
partners seem to be able to raise the funds from their
regular budgets and likely with the help of the national
energy provider ESKOM, who operates the Koeberg
nuclear-power plants. The Board will meet in January and
one of the topics on the agenda is the go-ahead with the
construction and filling of the detector with
scintillation material. After construction and filling
the detector, it will be shipped to iThemba LABS mid
2008 and will undergo laboratory testing until at the
end of 2008. At that time the detector will be installed
at the Koeberg nuclear-power plant and "real" testing
starts. As a result of the MoU two bursaries for Honors
students were made available jointly with the University
of Stellenbosch, iThemba LABS and Stichting EARTH.
Eventually four student made their Hons thesis on Earth
related topics (three at Stellenbosch and one at
University of Cape Town). Several students have
indicated to be interested in an MsC thesis on the
project and ESKOM has suggested that they make a PhD
position available.
If this overview triggers
questions from your side, I am looking forward to answer
them.
With my best wishes to you
for the upcoming holidays and for 2008,
Yours sincerely,
Rob de Meijer
Director EARTH
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