LVD highlights

TL;DR

The LVD detector in Italy has monitored the galaxy for over 14 years to detect low-energy neutrinos from stellar collapses, setting upper limits on such events and demonstrating capabilities in muon detection and beam monitoring.

Contribution

This paper reports on the long-term operation, neutrino observation limits, and muon detection performance of the LVD detector, including its role in the SNEWS network and as a beam monitor.

Findings

No gravitational core-collapse detected in 14 years, setting an upper limit of 0.18 events per year.

LVD successfully reconstructs cosmic muon tracks, including horizontal ones.

Demonstrated performance as a beam monitor during CNGS operation.

Abstract

The Large Volume Detector (LVD) in the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory, Italy, is a $\nu$ observatory mainly designed to study low energy neutrinos from the gravitational collapse of galactic objects. The experiment has been monitoring the Galaxy since June 1992, under increasing larger configurations: in January 2001 it has reached its final active mass M=1 kt. LVD is one of the largest liquid scintillator apparatus in the world for the detection of stellar collapses and, besides SNO, SuperKamiokande and Amanda, it is a charter member of the SNEWS network, that has become fully operational since July 1st, 2005. No gravitational core-collapse has been detected by LVD during 14 years of data acquisition; this allows to put an upper limit of 0.18 events y$^{-1}$ in our galaxy at the 90% C.L. The LVD tracking system allows the detection and the recontruction of the cosmic muon tracks in a large fraction of the whole solid angle, in particular also horizontal tracks can be reconstructed. The results of the muon depth--intensity relation and of the flux of neutrino--induced muons are presented. Moreover, during 2006, the CNGS beam will start its operation: the performances of LVD as a beam monitor are described.