Sunday, 31 January 2016

Hanohano: A Deep Ocean Antineutrino Observatory

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0810/0810.0564.pdf

The Hanohano Observatory is a deep-ocean anti-neutrino detector, currently being designed.  This paper is a brief sketch of some of the experiments it would be able to perform.  Placing the detector near a nuclear reactor would allow us to measure the mysterious phenomenon of neutrino oscillation, and could advance fundamental science.  Deep-ocean locations would measure neutrino activity from inside the Earth, allowing us a view of nuclear reactions in the mantle and in the core.  It's also possible that the detector would allow us to detect astronomical events, and could open up a whole new realm of astronomy.

This paper is from 2008, and it's hard to find what progress there has been since - not sure if this is usual for this kind of proposals, of if it means it's been shelved in favour of another design.  Still, I love how much this sounds like something Charles Stross would write!

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