Target studies for the production of lithium8 for neutrino physics using a low energy cyclotron

Abstract

Lithium 8 is a short lived beta emitter producing a high energy anti-neutrino, which is very suitable for making several measurements of fundamental quantities. It is proposed to produce Lithium 8 with a commercially available 60 MeV cyclotron using protons or alpha particles on a Beryllium 9 target. We have used the GEANT4 program to model these processes, and calculate the anti-neutrino fluxes that could be obtained in a practical system. We also calculate the production of undesirable contaminants such as Boron 8, and show that these can be reduced to a very low level.