Feasibility studies of the geochemical 205Tl solar neutrino experiment

New investigations on the signal to background ratio of the geochemical 205Tl(νe,e-)205Pb solar neutrino experiment are presented. The neutrino capture rate of 205Tl and a possible reduction of the neutrino signal due to neutrino oscillations in matter are discussed. The contributions of natural radioactivity, stopped negative muons and fast muons to the background of 205Pb are estimated. The production of radioisotopes in the lead region induced by cosmic ray muons was studied at the high energy muon beam (M2) of CERN with 120, 200 and 280 GeV muons. The background contribution of cosmic ray muons is found to be significantly higher than expected by former estimations and restricts the feasibility of the 205Tl solar neutrino experiment. (author) 11 refs., 1 fig