부산대학교 도서관

Water Cherenkov (wC) detectors are extremely powerful apparatuses for scientific research. Nevertheless they lack of neutron tagging capabilities, which translates, mainly, into an inability to identify the anti-matter nature of the reacting incoming anti-neutrino particles. A solution was proposed by R. Beacon and M. Vagins back in 2004: by dissolving in the water a compound with nucleus with very large cross section for neutron capture like the Gadolinium, with a corresponding emission of photons of enough energy to be detected, they can tag thermal neutrons with an efficiency larger than 80%. In this talk we detail the technique and its implications in the measurement capabilities and, as well, the new backgrounds induced. We discuss the improvement on their physics program, also for the case of LAGUNA type detectors. We comment shortly the status of the pioneering R&D program of the Super-Kamiokande Collaboration towards dissolving a Gadolinium compound in its water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]