Seminario Generale INFN

The field of MeV neutrino detection using the Inverse-Beta-Decay interaction (IBD) was pioneered by Cowan&Reines, upon the neutrino discovery (1956 - Nobel prized). Actually, Cowan&Reines paved much of the neutrino detection principle exploited and improved for ~70 years by a long legacy of liquid scintillator and water Cherenkov detectors. In this seminar, first, I will shortly review a few examples of the "ultimate perfection” yielded in the last decade with scintillating detectors. Many of those detectors have embodied among the most successful contributions to the the neutrino oscillations field (Nobel prize 2015). Despite success, today’s technology is known to have important limitations. So, second, I shall review some of the key limitations while illustrating (for the first time) a new R&D detection technology intending to go beyond the "Cowan&Reines paradigm” incorporating unprecedented event ID capability. This technology (called LiquidO) is expected to allow detection beyond native IBD interaction thus opening, if successful, for fundamental research neutrino physics beyond today's reach.