Detection of solar neutrinos in superfluid helium

Abstract

A new method for detecting solar neutrinos and other weakly interacting particles is proposed and described. The detector consists of a large mass of superfluid helium at low temperatures (20 mK). When a neutrino is scattered off an electron, the recoil energy of the electron (${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}6}$ to ${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}7}$ erg) is deposited in the helium. This small amount of energy can be detected because of the unusual kinetics of rotons at low temperatures. It should be possible to construct a detector of sufficiently low background and large size to measure solar neutrino spectra.