The detection of electron antineutrinos produced by natural radioactivity in the Earth could yield important geophysical information. The Kamioka liquid scintillator antineutrino detector (KamLAND) has the sensitivity to detect electron antineutrinos produced by the decay of 238U and 232Th within the Earth. Earth composition models suggest that the radiogenic power from these isotope decays is 16 TW, approximately half of the total measured heat dissipation rate from the Earth. Here we present results from a search for geoneutrinos with KamLAND. Assuming a Th/U mass concentration ratio of 3.9, the 90 per cent confidence interval for the total number of geoneutrinos detected is 4.5 to 54.2. This result is consistent with the central value of 19 predicted by geophysical models. Although our present data have limited statistical power, they nevertheless provide by direct means an upper limit (60 TW) for the radiogenic power of U and Th in the Earth, a quantity that is currently poorly constrained.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 85. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 April 2025.
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Altmetric has tracked 29,181,122 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 106,734 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 99.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 450 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
