THE COWAN REINES EXPERIMENT

“Detecting the Poltergeist!”

Mihirkumar S Tripathi
DNAP
Integrated PhD
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
HISTORY

 Neutrinos were first postulated by Wolfwong Pauli in 1930.

 He described it as “Desperate Remedy” to explain Continuous beta
decay spectrum and conservation of angular momentum in beta
decay processes .
 In 1933-34 Enrico Fermi developed a theoretical model for beta
decay based on Dirac’s Quantum Field theory of electromagnetism
and incorporating Pauli’s hypothesis of existence of another charge
less particle(which he called “neutrino” – the little neutron) which
explained conservation of energy and momentum in Beta decay
processes.
 It was remarkable that it accounted for all observed properties of
beta decay processes like correct prediction of lifetime of parent
nuclei based on energy released in Decay and predicting Correct
Shape of Emitted Energy spectrum of Electrons in β decay.
THE COWAN REINES EXPERIMENT
o The first successful attempt for experimental detection of Neutrino was
done by Dr. Fredric Reines and Dr. Clyde Cowan in 1956.

oThe project started in 1951 with name Project Poltergeist, it took 6 years to
achieve successful results, Dr Reines was honored with Nobel prize in 1995
for the experiment , unfortunately Dr Cowan died in 1974.

Dr. Fredric Reines Dr. Clyde Cowan

DETECTING THE POLTERGEIST
 In 1951 Dr Fredric Reines working at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory first
contemplated to experimental detection of Neutrino, later on he was joined
by his collogue Dr. Clyde Cowan.
 The central idea of the experiment was to observe inverse β decay process
induced by antineutrino and thereby confirming existence of Neutrino.

Ѵ + p+1 n0 + e+1

The emitted positron would the go through annihilation with electron and
produce gamma rays which will produce flashes of light which will be “seen” by
photomultiplier tubes in Detector.

Inorder to get sufficient inverse beta decay processes a huge Neutrino flux
and also a proton reach material was needed to act as absorbing medium for
neutrinos.
 Newly developed nuclear reactor at Savannah River site in USA was used to
provide the required Neutrino flux ( of about 1013 neutrino/S*cm2)
 Water was used as proton reach detecting material , it had small amount of
dissolved CdCl2 which was used to employ a new detecting technique called
delayed coincidence.
 As shown in figure an antineutrino emitted from reactor interacts with proton
and produces a positron(1-5MeV) and neutron (~10KeV) , the positron then
annihilates with an electron giving two 0.511MeV Gamma rays which is then
followed by 3 high energy gamma rays by neutron capture in Cd( ~totaling 9
MeV) within a few microseconds. This two signals coming one after the other
provided a signature for neutrino induced decay.
•The figure shows illustration of detector , coated in
lead – paraffin shield, it consist of 5 main components.

•The three blocks (I), (II) and (III) are steel tanks filled
with liquid scintillators ( Tri ethyl benzene, terphynyle,
POPOP wavelength shifter – 1400 litters), each has
110 PMT (5 inch) to detect scintillations .

•A and B are two water tanks (shown in blue) made of

plastic, sandwiched between blocks of Scintillator
each containing 200 liters of water.

•The detector was put near a Nuclear reactor The Savannah River neutrino detector. Source: Reines,
et al., ‘‘Detection of the Free Neutrino’’
separated by 11 m thick concrete wall to shield it from (ref. 24), Figure 2; copyright 1960 by the American

neutrons emitted by Reactor. Physical Society .

Dimension of target tanks 1.9m* 1.7m*
•This Detector is actually the improved version of 0.07 m
another detector used previously by the team in 1953
in which organic scintillator itself acted as detecting
material as well.
DELAYED COINCIDENCE SIGNAL DETECTION

(a) Positron Signal Detection

•In (a) a positron annihilation is observed in top tried of the detector.

•The signal is passed through positron energy discriminator and then to positron prompt
coincidence circuit.

•If delay time between two signals is less then given time (Resolving time of equipment
~0.2 μ Second) then it accepts the signal and switches on the Neutron capture signal
detection circuit .
DELAYED COINCIDENCE SIGNAL DETECTION

(b) Neutron capture signal detection

•The second circuit stays on for specified time ( here 3 μSeconds) and if signals of
neutron capture corresponding to specified frequency is observed within that time it
is accepted as neutron capture signal

•After that both signals which are in delay circuits are presented to triple beam
oscilloscopes.
 OSCILLOSCOPE TRACES FROM SAVANNAH RIVER EXPERIMENT

Here are some oscilloscope pictures , traces

from different detectors are labeled by (I),
(II), (III).

The traces of kind (a) and (b) were counted

as acceptable inverse beta decay processes .

In (a) we can see two pulses in positron

scope in top triad of detector I and II (0.3
and 0.35 MeV respectively) , similarly in
Neutron scope too (5.8 MeV and 3.3MeV),
With delay time of 2.5 μS.

Similarly in (b) we see signal of inverse β

decay in bottom triad.

( c ),(d) , (e) & (f) are kind of signals which

were disregarded and predicted to be
generated by either Cosmic rays or notice in
electrical circuit.
These data appeared in Reines, Cowan, Harrison, et al.
1960.
TESTS , RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
• The experiment ran for total of about 1371 hours with 900 hours of reactor on
time and signals with rate 2.28± 0.22 counts/ hour was observed & cross section
per fission was measured to be 6.7±1.5* 10-44 cm2 , Which was in good
agreement of theoretically predicted value of the order of 10-44cm2/fission .

• With signal to reactor associated background ratio of 20/1 and signal to reactor
independent background ratio of 3/1.

• Changing half of the light water in detector tanks with heavy water (deuteron
having smaller cross section) reduced signal rate by half ,but it did not affect the
neutron capture efficiency.

• Both positron annihilation pulses and Neutron capture pulses were checked with
predetermined energy and removal of cadmium from water resulted in
disappearance of reactor signal.

• The signal generated by electrical noise was identified with help of

photographic recording of signals in scintillator detector.
•An additional makeshift shielding composed of wet sawdust (thickness~4
feet) was used to shield detector from neutron, gamma rays from reactor
and other cosmic background radiation and it was found that it didn’t reduce
the signal rate .(neutron attenuation factor ~ 10)

• Thus it was demonstrated that free neutrino are observable in near vicinity
of Nuclear reactors.
 SOURCES AND REFERENCES

1) F. Reines and C. Cowan jun. Nature volume178, pages446–449 (01 Septembre 1956)
Link : https://www.nature.com/articles/178446a0.ris

2) Detection of the Free Neutrino F. Reines and C. L. Cowan, Jr. Phys. Rev. 92, 830 1
November 1953
Link : https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.92.830

3) Detecting the Poltergeist : The Reines Cowan Experiment

Link : http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-UR-97-2534-
02