Speaker
Description
There are still several unanswered fundamental questions concerning our planet and in particular, about the deep Earth, from where we lack direct samples. Geo-neutrinos, electron anti-neutrinos produced in β decays of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in the Earth, are a unique direct probe of our planet’s interior. If detected, they allow to quantify the amount and distribution of radiogenic elements and to constrain the energy balance. Progress in neutrino-detection techniques has made their study possible: ultrapure large underground liquid scintillators are particularly suited to measure antineutrino fluxes. The geoneutrino signal has been robustly detected by the Borexino and KamLAND Collaborations and consequences for Earth’s radiogenic deduced. The talk is aimed to summarize the present status and the future perspectives in the field.
