ON THE POSSIBILITY TO SIMULTANEOUSLY DETERMINE THE LONG-TERM AVERAGE FLUXES OF SOLAR pp-NEUTRINOS AND COSMIC RAY MUONS

Abstract

The Allchar mine in the southern FYR Macedonia contains the world's largest known concentration of thallium bearing minerals. LOREX (acronym for the geo-chemical LORandite EXperiment) is an international collaboration exploring the opportunity to use the rare mineral lorandite ( TlAsS 2) for the determination of the solar pp-neutrino flux, averaged over the 4.3 million year age of the deposit. Here we discuss the possibility to determine simultaneously both the solar neutrino and the cosmic ray muon flux, averaged over the same period of time. Cosmic-ray muons participate in the reaction 205 Tl (μp, n)205 Pb , whereas the neutrinos induce the capture reaction 205 Tl (νe, e)205 Pb * → 205 Pb . Both fluxes can in principle be determined by counting the number of atoms of the long-lived 205 Pb present in the mineral, produced by both muons and neutrinos in the reactions with the most abundant stable isotope, 205 Tl .