Target studies for the production of lithium8 for neutrino physics using a low energy cyclotron

Lithium 8 is a short lived beta emitter producing a high
energy anti-neutrino,which is very suitable formaking several
measurements of fundamental quantities. It is proposed
to produce Lithium 8 with a commercially available
60 MeV cyclotron using protons or alpha particles on a
Beryllium 9 target. We have used the GEANT4 program
to model these processes, and calculate the anti-neutrino
fluxes that could be obtained in a practical system. We also
calculate the production of undesirable contaminants such
as Boron 8, and show that these can be reduced to a very
low level.