A low background facility inside the LVD detector at Gran Sasso

Abstract

The Large Volume Detector (LVD) in the Gran Sasso Laboratory of INFN is an observatory mainly devoted to search for neutrinos from core collapse supernovae. It consists of 1000 tons of liquid scintillator divided in 840 stainless steel tanks 1.5m${}^3$ each. In this letter we present the possibility for LVD to work both as a passive shield and moderator for the low energy gamma and neutron background and as an active veto for muons and higher energy neutrons. An inner region inside the LVD structure ("LVD Core Facility") can be identified, with a volume of about 30m${}^3$, with the neutron background typical of an underground laboratory placed at a much deeper site. This region can be realized with a negligible impact on the LVD operation and sensitive mass. The LVD Core Facility could be effectively exploited by a compact experiment for the search of rare events, such as double beta decay or dark matter.

5 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Muon-Induced Background Study for Underground Laboratories
• Neutron background in large-scale xenon detectors for dark matter searches
• On-line recognition of supernova neutrino bursts in the LVD detector
• A low background facility inside the LVD detector at Gran Sasso

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Background Measurements in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory
• Flux measurement of fast neutrons in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory
• A low background facility inside the LVD detector at Gran Sasso
• The LVD Core Facility: a study of LVD as muon veto and active shielding for dark matter experiments