JULOC: A Local 3-D Refined Crust Model for the Geoneutrino Measurement at JUNO

TL;DR

This paper develops a detailed 3-D crust model around JUNO to improve geoneutrino flux estimates, aiding in understanding Earth's interior heat sources and distinguishing between different compositional models.

Contribution

It introduces a refined 3-D crust model for the JUNO site, integrating geological, geophysical, and geochemical data to enhance geoneutrino flux predictions.

Findings

The model distinguishes geological layer volumes and Th/U abundances.

Predicted local geoneutrino flux contribution and radiogenic heat.

Enhanced accuracy in crustal geoneutrino flux estimation.

Abstract

Geothermal energy is the key to drive the plate tectonics and interior thermodynamics of the Earth. The surface heat flux, as measured in boreholes, provide limited insights into the relative contributions of primordial versus radiogenic sources of the heat budget of the mantle. Geoneutrinos, electron antineutrinos that produced from the radioactive decay of the heat producing elements, are unique probes that bring direct information about the amount and distribution of heat producing elements in the crust and mantle. Cosmochemical, geochemical, and geodynamic compositional models of the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE) individually predicts different mantle neutrino fluxes, and therefore can be distinguished by the direct measurement of geoneutrinos. The 20 kton detector of the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), currently under construction in the Guangdong Province (China), is expected to provide an exciting opportunity to obtain a high statistics measurement, which will produce sufficient data to address several key questions of geological importance. To test different compositional models of the mantle, an accurate estimation of the crust geoneutrino flux based on a three-dimensional (3-D) crust model in advance is important. This paper presents a 3-D crust model over a surface area of 10-degrees-times-10-degrees grid surrounding the JUNO detector and a depth down to the Moho discontinuity, based on the geological, geophysical and geochemistry properties. The 3-D model provides a distinction of the volumes of the different geological layers together with the corresponding Th and U abundances. We also present our predicted local contribution to the total geoneutrino flux and the corresponding radiogenic heat.