NOSTOS – Spherical TPCs

A new concept, the spherical TPC, presents unique advantages when low energy neutrinos are to be detected. Some of the applications are: a) observation of the νe oscillation when emitted by a tritium source (=14 keV) in a 10 m radius sphere. This project, baptized NOSTOS, intends to give the mixing angle θ13, the Weinberg angle and a much lower limit (<10−10−10−12μB) of the neutrino magnetic moment, b) an array of small (radius 2-4 m), cheap spheres scattered around the world would be perfect to monitor extragalactic supernovae, c) detect the spectrum of low energy (pp - 7Be) solar neutrinos.