page_title: Borexino
hierarchical_section_title: Borexino
caption_attribution_description: English: Borexino Detector in LNGS in September 2015
context_page_description: Borexino is a particle physics experiment to study low energy solar neutrinos.
  The detector is the world's most radio-pure liquid scintillator calorimeter. It is placed within a stainless steel sphere which holds the signal detectors and is shielded by a water tank to protect it against external radiation and tag incoming cosmic muons that manage to penetrate the overburden of the mountain above.
  The primary aim of the experiment is to make a precise measurement of the individual neutrino fluxes from the Sun and compare them to the Standard solar model predictions. This will allow scientists to test and to further understand the functioning of the Sun and will also help determine properties of neutrino oscillations, including the MSW effect. Specific goals of the experiment are to detect beryllium-7, boron-8, pp, pep and CNO solar neutrinos as well as anti-neutrinos from the Earth and nuclear power plants. The project may also be able to detect neutrinos from supernovae within our galaxy with a special potential to detect the elastic scattering of neutrinos onto protons, due to neutral current interactions. Borexino is a member of the Supernova Early Warning System.
context_section_description: Borexino is a particle physics experiment to study low energy (sub-MeV) solar neutrinos.
  The detector is the world's most radio-pure liquid scintillator calorimeter. It is placed within a stainless steel sphere which holds the signal detectors (photomultiplier tubes or PMTs) and is shielded by a water tank to protect it against external radiation and tag incoming cosmic muons that manage to penetrate the overburden of the mountain above.
  The primary aim of the experiment is to make a precise measurement of the individual neutrino fluxes from the Sun and compare them to the Standard solar model predictions. This will allow scientists to test and to further understand the functioning of the Sun (e.g.,  nuclear fusion processes taking place at the core of the Sun, solar composition, opacities, matter distribution, etc.) and will also help determine properties of neutrino oscillations, including the MSW effect. Specific goals of the experiment are to detect beryllium-7, boron-8, pp, pep and CNO solar neutrinos as well as anti-neutrinos from the Earth and nuclear power plants. The project may also be able to detect neutrinos from supernovae within our galaxy with a special potential to detect the elastic scattering of neutrinos onto protons, due to neutral current interactions. Borexino is a member of the Supernova Early Warning System. Searches for rare processes and potential unknown particles are also underway.
  The name Borexino is the Italian diminutive of BOREX (BORon solar neutrino EXperiment), after the original 1 kT-fiducial experimental proposal with a different scintillator (TMB), was discontinued because of a shift in focus in physics goals as well as financial constraints. The experiment is located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso near the town of L'Aquila, Italy, and is supported by an international collaboration with researchers from Italy, the United States, Germany, France, Poland and Russia.  The experiment is funded by multiple national agencies including the INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) and the NSF (National Science Foundation). In May 2017, Borexino reached 10 years of continuous operation since the start of its data-taking period in 2007.
  The SOX project was projected study the possible existence of sterile neutrinos or other anomalous effects in neutrino oscillations at short ranges through the use of a neutrino generator based on radioactive cerium-144. This project was cancelled in early 2018 due to unsurmountable technical problems in the fabrication of the antineutrino source.
caption: Borexino from the North side of LNGS's underground Hall C in September 2015. It is shown close to being completely covered in thermal insulation (seen as a silvery wrapping) as an effort to further improve its unprecedented radiopurity levels.
exif: {}