The Calibration and Monitoring Systems for Borexino

The goal of the new generation of solar neutrino experiments is to obtain decisive evidence for neutrino oscillations, widely considered to be the explanation of the long-standing solar neutrino problem, and to discriminate between the allowed solutions. The Borexino solar neutrino detector, presently in construction at the Gran Sasso underground laboratories in Italy, aims at the detection of the 7 Be line at 861 keV, which demands both a low energy threshold and a very low level of background from natural radioactivity in the detector materials. These requirements led to the choice of liquid scintil-lator as the detection medium but posed limitations to a straightforward use of radioactive sources for the calibration and monitoring of Borex-ino, determinig the pursuit of alternative methods. This paper presents the goals and techniques of the Borexino experiment, focusing on the strategy to address the calibration and monitoring tasks.