Interpretable machine learning approach for electron antineutrino selection in a large liquid scintillator detector
Università degli Studi di Padova（帕多瓦大学）；INFN（意大利国家核物理研究院）；Università degli Studi di Catania（卡塔尼亚大学）
A. Gavrikov, V. Cerrone, A. Serafini, R. Brugnera, A. Garfagnini, M. Grassi, B. Jelmini, L. Lastrucci, S. Aiello, G. Andronico, V. Antonelli, A. Barresi, D. Bas… 展开作者
A. Gavrikov, V. Cerrone, A. Serafini, R. Brugnera, A. Garfagnini, M. Grassi, B. Jelmini, L. Lastrucci, S. Aiello, G. Andronico, V. Antonelli, A. Barresi, D. Basilico, M. Beretta, A. Bergnoli, M. Borghesi, A. Brigatti, R. Bruno, A. Budano, B. Caccianiga, A. Cammi, R. Caruso, D. Chiesa, C. Clementi, S. Dusini, A. Fabbri, G. Felici, F. Ferraro, M. G. Giammarchi, N. Giudice, R. M. Guizzetti, N. Guardone, C. Landini, I. Lippi, S. Loffredo, L. Loi, P. Lombardi, C. Lombardo, F. Mantovani, S. M. Mari, A. Martini, L. Miramonti, M. Montuschi, M. Nastasi, D. Orestano, F. Ortica, A. Paoloni, E. Percalli, F. Petrucci, E. Previtali, G. Ranucci, A. C. Re, M. Redchuck, B. Ricci, A. Romani, P. Saggese, G. Sava, C. Sirignano, M. Sisti, L. Stanco, E. Stanescu Farilla, V. Strati, M. D. C. Torri, A. Triossi, C. Tuvé, C. Venettacci, G. Verde, L. Votano
Several neutrino detectors, KamLAND, Daya Bay, Double Chooz, RENO, and the forthcoming large-scale JUNO, rely on liquid scintillator to detect reactor antineutrino interactions. In this context, inverse beta decay represents the golden channel for antineutrino detection, providing a pair of correlated events, thus a strong experimental signature to distinguish the signal from a variety of backgrounds. However, given the low cross-section of antineutrino interactions, the development of a powerful event selection algorithm becomes imperative to achieve effective discrimination between signal and backgrounds. In this study, we introduce a machine learning (ML) model to achieve this goal: a fully connected neural network as a powerful signal-background discriminator for a large liquid scintillator detector. We demonstrate, using the JUNO detector as an example, that, despite the already high efficiency of a cut-based approach, the presented ML model can further improve the overall event selection efficiency. Moreover, it allows for the retention of signal events at the detector edges that would otherwise be rejected because of the overwhelming amount of background events in that region. We also present the first interpretable analysis of the ML approach for event selection in reactor neutrino experiments. This method provides insights into the decision-making process of the model and offers valuable information for improving and updating traditional event selection approaches.
We propose a new type segmented antineutrino detector made of plastic scintillators for the nuclear safeguard application. A small prototype was built and tested to measure background events. A satisfactory unmanned field operation of the detector system was demonstrated. Besides, a detailed Monte Carlo simulation code was developed to estimate the antineutrino detection efficiency of the detector.
We developed a segmented reactor-antineutrino detector made of plastic scintillators for application as a tool in nuclear safeguards inspection and performed mostly unmanned field operations at a commercial power plant reactor. At a position outside the reactor building, we measured the difference in reactor antineutrino flux above the ground when the reactor was active and inactive.
We regard the possibility of detecting the antineutrino flux producing by the $^{40}$K placing inside the Earth. Thermal flux of the Earth could be better understood with observing such a flux. Lower and upper limitations on the $^{40}$K antineutrino flux are presented.
Over the course of several decades, organic liquid scintillators have formed the basis for successful neutrino detectors. Gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillators provide efficient background suppression for electron antineutrino detection at nuclear reactor plants. In the Double Chooz reactor antineutrino experiment, a newly developed beta-diketonate gadolinium-loaded scintillator is utilized for the first time. Its large scale production and characterization are described. A new, light yield matched metal-free companion scintillator is presented. Both organic liquids comprise the target and "G…
We present a characterization of a small (9-liter) and mobile 0.1% 6Li-doped pulse-shape-sensitive plastic scintillator antineutrino detector called SANDD (Segmented AntiNeutrino Directional Detector), constructed for the purpose of near-field reactor monitoring with sensitivity to antineutrino direction. SANDD comprises three different types of module. A detailed Monte Carlo simulation code was developed to match and validate the performance of each of the three modules. The combined model was then used to produce a prediction of the performance of the entire detector. Analysis cuts were esta…
We introduce a novel approach to investigate CP violation in the neutrino sector, based on the simultaneous detection of $ν_e$ and $\barν_e$ stemming from the oscillation of $ν_μ$ and $\barν_μ$ produced in the decay at rest of $π$s and $μ$s at a beam dump. This approach relies on a novel liquid scintillator detector technology expected to yield unprecedented identification of $ν_e$ and $\barν_e$ charged-current interactions, which we investigate by means of Montecarlo simulations. Here we report preliminary results concerning both the detection technique and its physics reach.
This study presents a new concept of segmented antineutrino detector based on hexagonal plastic scintillator bars for detecting antineutrinos from a nuclear reactor core. The choice of hexagonal scintillator bars is original and provides compactness. The proposed detector detects antineutrinos via inverse beta decay (IBD) with the prompt-delayed double coincidence. Owing to its segmented structure, the background, which satisfies the delayed coincidence condition can be eliminated by applying proper event selection cuts. In this manner, the main focus is to determine proper selection criteria …
A meter-long, 23-liter EJ-309 liquid scintillator detector has been constructed to study the light collection and pulse-shape discrimination performance of elongated scintillator cells for the PROSPECT reactor antineutrino experiment. The magnitude and uniformity of light collection and neutron/gamma discrimination power in the energy range of antineutrino inverse beta decay products have been studied using gamma and spontaneous fission calibration sources deployed along the cell long axis. We also study neutron-gamma discrimination and light collection abilities for differing PMT and reflecto…
The Daya Bay Antineutrino Detector gas system is designed to protect the liquid scintillator targets of the antineutrino detectors against degradation and contamination from exposure to ambient laboratory air. The gas system is also used to monitor the leak tightness of the antineutrino detector assembly. The cover gas system constantly flushes the gas volumes above the liquid scintillator with dry nitrogen to minimize oxidation of the scintillator over the five year lifetime of the experiment. This constant flush also prevents the infiltration of radon or other contaminants into these detecti…
In this work, the simulation of optical photons is carried out in an antineutrino detector module consisting of a plastic scintillator connected to light guides and photomultipliers on both ends, which is considered to be used for remote reactor monitoring in the field of nuclear safety. Using Monte Carlo (MC) based GEANT4 simulation, numerous parameters influencing the light collection and thereby the energy resolution of the antineutrino detector module are studied: e.g., degrees of scintillator surface roughness, reflector type, and its ap- plying method onto scintillator and light guide su…
In this work we report the performances and the chemical and physical properties of a (2 x 1.2) ton organic liquid scintillator target doped with Gd up to ~0.1%, and the results of a 2 year long stability survey. In particular we have monitored the amount of both Gd and primary fluor actually in solution, the optical and fluorescent properties of the Gd-doped liquid scintillator (GdLS) and its performances as a neutron detector, namely neutron capture efficiency and average capture time. The experimental survey is ongoing, the target being continuously monitored. After two years from the dopin…
In this study, simulation-based design and optimization studies of a gadolinium loaded segmented plastic scintillator detector are presented for monitoring applications of nuclear reactors in Turkey using antineutrinos. For the first time in the literature, a multivariate analysis technique is introduced to suppress cosmic background for such a reactor antineutrino detector.
PROSPECT, the Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment, will use two segmented detectors positioned 7-20 m from the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to measure the U-235 antineutrino spectrum and perform a search for short-baseline oscillations as a signature of eV-scale sterile neutrinos. PROSPECT has developed Li-6 loaded liquid scintillator detectors for efficient identification of reactor antineutrinos and has measured reactor and cosmogenic backgrounds in the HFIR reactor building. Multiple test detectors have been built, operated, and charact…
This paper describes the data acquisition system used for data readout from a segmented detector of reactor antineutrinos with active shielding. Theoretical approach to the data acquisition is described and two possible solutions using QDCs and digitizers are discussed. Also described are the results of the DAQ performance during routine data taking operation of DANSS. DANSS (Detector of the reactor AntiNeutrino based on Solid Scintillator) is a project aiming to measure a spectrum of reactor antineutrinos using inverse beta decay (IBD) in a plastic scintillator. The detector is located close …
The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment has measured the neutrino mixing angle θ_{13} to world-leading precision. The experiment uses eight antineutrino detectors filled with 20-tons of gadolinium-doped liquid scintillator to detect antineutrinos emitted from the Daya Bay nuclear power plant through the inverse beta decay reaction. The precision measurement of sin^{2}2θ_{13} relies on the relative antineutrino interaction rates between detectors at near (400 m) and far (roughly 1.8 km) distances from the nuclear reactors. The measured interaction rate in each detector is directly proportional…
A liquid scintillator (LS) is developed for the Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO), a ton-level neutrino detector to measure the reactor antineutrino spectrum with sub-percent energy resolution by adopting Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) as photosensor. To reduce the dark noise of SiPMs to an acceptable level, the LS has to work at -50 degree or lower. A customized apparatus based on a charge-coupled device (CCD) is developed to study the transparency of the liquid samples in a cryostat. We find that the water content in LS results in transparency degradation at low temperature, which can…
A large-volume liquid scintillator can be used as a tracking detector to measure high-energy neutrino events, like atmospheric neutrinos and neutrino beams. The lepton flavor recognition is almost absolute above 1 GeV. The energy resolution is 2--5 %, the main uncertainties coming from nuclear physics and poorly recognized hadrons. At GeV scale antineutrinos may be statistically distinguishable from neutrinos by neutron and proton signals.
A method for energy and radius reconstruction with simulated charge information in a ton-scale liquid scintillator detector like Taishan Antineutrino Observatory
Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院高能物理研究所）；Kaiping Neutrino Research Center（开平中微子研究中心）；Department of Applied Sciences, School of Engineering and Technology, CGC University（CGC大学工程技术学院应用科学系）；TIANFU Cosmic Ray Research Center（天府宇宙线研究中心）
The mass hierarchy and the CP phase are the main focus of the next generation neutrino oscillation experiments. Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), as a medium baseline reactor antineutrino experiment, can determine the neutrino mass hierarchy independent of the CP phase. The physics potential on the mass hierarchy, and other measurements are reviewed. The preliminary design options for a 20~kton detector with an energy resolution of $3\%/\sqrt{E_{vis}}$ are illustrated. The main technical challenges on the PMT and scintillator are discussed and the corresponding R\&D efforts are…
The next generation of very-short-baseline reactor experiments will require compact detectors operating at surface level and close to a nuclear reactor. This paper presents a new detector concept based on a composite solid scintillator technology. The detector target uses cubes of polyvinyltoluene interleaved with $^6$LiF:ZnS(Ag) phosphor screens to detect the products of the inverse beta decay reaction. A multi-tonne detector system built from these individual cells can provide precise localisation of scintillation signals, making efficient use of the detector volume. Monte Carlo simulations …
The DANSS project is aimed at creating a relatively compact neutrino spectrometer which does not contain any flammable or other dangerous liquids and may therefore be located very close to the core of an industrial power reactor. As a result, it is expected that high neutrino flux would provide about 15,000 IBD interactions per day in the detector with a sensitive volume of 1 m$^3$. High segmentation of the plastic scintillator will allow to suppress a background down to a 1% level. Numerous tests performed with a simplified pilot prototype DANSSino under a 3 GW$_{th}$ reactor of the Kalinin N…
We report the first clear observation of neutron/gamma-ray pulse-shape sensitivity of a fully-instrumented 8 $\times$ 8 array of plastic scintillator segments coupled to two 5 cm $\times$ 5 cm 64-channel SiPM arrays as part of a study of the key metrics of a prototype antineutrino detector module designed for directional sensitivity. SANDD (a Segmented AntiNeutrino Directional Detector) will eventually comprise a central module of 64 elongated segments of $^{6}$Li-doped pulse-shape-sensitive scintillator rods, each with a square cross section of 5.4 mm $\times$ 5.4 mm, surrounded by larger cro…
The energy resolution is crucial for the reactor neutrino experiments which aims to determine neutrino mass ordering by precise measurement of the reactor antineutrino energy spectrum. A non-negligible effect in the antineutrino energy resolution is the spread of the kinetic energy of the recoiled neutron and the corresponding positron when detecting the antineutrinos via Inverse Beta-Decay (IBD) reaction. The emission direction of the produced positron in IBD reaction can be used to estimate the kinetic energy of neutron and thus the reconstructed antineutrino energy resolution can be improve…
Environmental radioactivity is a dominant background for rare decay search experiments, and it is difficult to completely remove such an impurity from detector vessels. We propose a scintillation balloon as the active vessel of a liquid scintillator in order to identify this undesirable radioactivity. According to our feasibility studies, the scintillation balloon enables the bismuth--polonium sequential decay to be tagged with a 99.7\% efficiency, assuming a KamLAND (Kamioka Liquid scintillator AntiNeutrino Detector)-type liquid scintillator detector. This tagging of sequential decay using al…
JUNO is a 20 kt Liquid Scintillator Antineutrino Detector currently under construction in the south of China. This report reviews JUNO's physics programme related to all neutrino sources but reactor antineutrinos, namely neutrinos from supernova burst, solar neutrinos and geoneutrinos.
The antineutrino detectors in the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment are liquid scintillator detectors designed to detect low energy particles from antineutrino interactions with high efficiency and low backgrounds. Since the antineutrino detector will be installed in a water Cherenkov cosmic ray veto detector and will run for 3 to 5 years, ensuring water tightness is critical to the successful operation of the antineutrino detectors. We choose a special method to seal the detector. Three leak checking methods have been employed to ensure the seal quality. This paper will describe the sealin…
We propose to include in the analysis of Borexino single event energy spectrum the scattering of $^{40}$K geo-antineutrinos by scintillator electrons. The Hydridic Earth model predicts the concentration of potassium in modern Earth from 1\% to 4\% of the Earth mass. We calculated contribution of $^{40}$K geo-antineutrino interactions in single Borexino events for these concentrations. This contribution is comparable to the contribution from the interaction of CNO neutrinos. We discuss the reasons for using the Hydridic Earth model.
We report on the production and characterization of liquid scintillators for the detection of electron antineutrinos by the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. One hundred eighty-five tons of gadolinium-loaded (0.1% by mass) liquid scintillator (Gd-LS) and two hundred tons of unloaded liquid scintillator (LS) were successfully produced from a linear-alkylbenzene (LAB) solvent in six months. The scintillator properties, the production and purification systems, and the quality assurance and control (QA/QC) procedures are described.
The fluorescence decay-time constants have been measured for several scintillator mixtures based on phenyl-o-xylylethane (PXE) and linear alkylbenzene (LAB) solvents. The resulting values are of relevance for the physics performance of the proposed large-volume liquid scintillator detector LENA (Low Energy Neutrino Astronomy). In particular, the impact of the measured values to the search for proton decay via p -> K+ antineutrino is evaluated in this work.
The electron antineutrino spectrum in the Stereo reactor experiment (ILL Grenoble) is measured via the inverse beta decay signals in an organic liquid scintillator. The six target cells of the Stereo detector are filled with about 1800 litres of Gd-loaded liquid scintillator optimised for the requirements of the experiment. These target cells are surrounded by similar cells containing liquid scintillator without the Gd-loading. The development and characteristics of these scintillators are reported. In particular, the transparency, light production and pulse shape discrimination capabilities o…
The Daya Bay reactor antineutrino experiment has recently measured the neutrino mixing parameter sin22θ13 by observing electron antineutrino disappearance over kilometer-scale baselines using six antineutrino detectors at near and far distances from reactor cores at the Daya Bay nuclear power complex. Liquid scintillator contained in transparent target vessels is used to detect electron antineutrinos via the inverse beta-decay reaction. The Daya Bay experiment will operate for about five years yielding a precision measurement of sin22θ13. We report on long-term studies of poly(methyl methacryl…
A detector material or configuration that can provide an unambiguous indication of neutron capture can substantially reduce random coincidence backgrounds in antineutrino detection and capture-gated neutron spectrometry applications. Here we investigate the performance of such a material, a composite of plastic scintillator and $^6$Li$_6^{nat}$Gd$(^{10}$BO$_{3})_{3}$:Ce (LGB) crystal shards of ~1 mm dimension and comprising 1% of the detector by mass. While it is found that the optical propagation properties of this material as currently fabricated are only marginally acceptable for antineutri…
We describe the automated calibration system for the antineutrino detectors in the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment. This system consists of 24 identical units instrumented on 8 identical 20-ton liquid scintillator detectors. Each unit is a fully automated robotic system capable of deploying an LED and various radioactive sources into the detector along given vertical axes. Selected results from performance studies of the calibration system are reported.
We deployed a small, 80kg, antineutrino detector based on solid plastic scintillator, called MiniCHANDLER for nearly three months at a distance of 25m from a 2.9GW thermal power reactor core at the North Anna Nuclear Generating Station. We report the detection of an antineutrino signal resulting from inverse beta decay at 5.5 sigma significance with no overburden and minimal shielding. This result also demonstrates that 3D segmentation can be used to significantly improve the signal to noise ratio, in this case by a factor of 4. In addition, this measurement represents an observation of the po…
We propose the first truly directional antineutrino detector for antineutrinos above the hydrogen inverse beta decay (IBD) threshold, with potential applications including monitoring for nuclear nonproliferation, spatially mapping geo-neutrinos, characterizing the diffuse supernova neutrino background, and searching for new physics in the neutrino sector. The detector consists of adjacent and separated target and capture scintillator planes. IBD events take place in the target layers, which are thin enough to allow the neutrons to escape without scattering elastically. The neutrons are detecte…
This study investigates the deployment of a medium-scale neutrino detector near Turkey's first nuclear power plant, the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant. The aim of this detector is to become a modular testbed for new technologies in the fields of new detection media and innovative photosensors. Such technologies include Water-based Liquid Scintillator (WbLS), Large Area Picosecond Photo-Detectors (LAPPDs), dichroic Winston cones, and large area silicon photomultiplier modules. The detector could be used for instantaneous monitoring of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant via its antineutrino flux. In add…
The SNO+ experiment is a large-scale, multipurpose neutrino experiment situated 2 km underground at SNOLAB in Canada. Successor to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, the SNO+ detector has inherited much of the original infrastructure including the 12-m diameter acrylic vessel which serves as the main detector body. Initially filled with ultrapure water, the SNO+ experiment has completed operations as a water Cherenkov detector, having set new limits on multiple invisible nucleon decay modes, performed measurements on $^8\mathrm{B}$ solar neutrinos, and made the first observation of reactor anti…
The paper is devoted to the description of the iDREAM detector and its systems. iDREAM is a prototype detector designed to demonstrate the feasibility of antineutrino detectors for remote reactor monitoring and safeguard purposes. Antineutrinos are detected with a 1 ton liquid scintillator via inverse beta decay on protons. In order to suppress cosmic muons, gamma and neutron background, the detector is housed in a dedicated shielding. The detector is installed at the Kalinin nuclear power plant (Russia), 20 m from the 3 GW$_{th}$ reactor core.
DANSSino is a simplified pilot version of a solid-state detector of reactor antineutrino (it is being created within the DANSS project and will be installed close to an industrial nuclear power reactor). Numerous tests performed under a 3 GW(th) reactor of the Kalinin NPP at a distance of 11 m from the core demonstrate operability of the chosen design and reveal the main sources of the background. In spite of its small size (20x20x100 ccm), the pilot detector turned out to be quite sensitive to reactor neutrinos, detecting about 70 IBD events per day with the signal-to-background ratio about u…
Core-collapse supernovae produce an intense burst of electron antineutrinos in the few-tens-of-MeV range. Several Large Liquid Scintillator-based Detectors (LLSD) are currently operated worldwide, being very effective for low energy antineutrino detection through the Inverse Beta Decay (IBD) process. In this article, we develop a procedure for the prompt extraction of the supernova location by revisiting the details of IBD kinematics over the broad energy range of supernova neutrinos. Combining all current scintillator-based detector, we show that one can locate a canonical supernova at 10 kpc…
After the neutrino mixing angle $θ_{13}$ has been precisely measured by the reactor antineutrino experiments, one of the most important open questions left in neutrino physics is the neutrino mass hierarchy. Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is designed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy (MH) without exploring the matter effect. The JUNO site location is optimized to have the best sensitivity for the mass hierarchy determination. JUNO will employ a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector located in a laboratory 700 meters underground. The excellent energy resolution and PMT c…
DANSS is a highly segmented 1m^3 plastic scintillator detector. It's 2500 scintillator strips have a Gd loaded reflective cover. Light is collected with 3 wave length shifting fibers per strip and read out with 50 PMTs and 2500 SiPMs. The DANSS will be installed under the industrial 3 GW reactor of the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant at distances varying from 9.7m to 12.2m from the reactor core. Tests of the detector prototype DANSSino demonstrated that in spite of a small size (20x20x100 cm^3) it is quite sensitive to reactor antineutrinos, detecting about 70 Inverse Beta Decay events per day wit…
New experimental research programs in the field of neutrino physics are calling for new detectors with large masses, high energy resolution and good background rejection capabilities. This paper presents a novel hybrid organic/inorganic scintillator, which is able to improve on all three aspects simultaneously. This scintillator consists of microscopic grains of inorganic crystals suspended in an organic scintillating carrier medium. Due to multiple scattering off the crystals, this scintillator appears opaque over longer distances and is intended for use in specialized detectors. Thanks to th…
The reactor neutrino and gallium anomalies can be tested with a 3-4 PBq (75-100 kCi scale) 144Ce-144Pr antineutrino beta-source deployed at the center or next to a large low-background liquid scintillator detector. The antineutrino generator will be produced by the Russian reprocessing plant PA Mayak as early as 2014, transported to Japan, and deployed in the Kamioka Liquid Scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector (KamLAND) as early as 2015. KamLAND's 13 m diameter target volume provides a suitable environment to measure the energy and position dependence of the detected neutrino flux. A characteri…
Antineutrinos from a nuclear reactor comprise an unshieldable signal which carries information about the core. A gadolinium-doped, water-based Cherenkov detector could detect reactor antineutrinos for mid- to far-field remote reactor monitoring for non-proliferation applications. Two novel and independent reconstruction and analysis pathways have been developed and applied to a number of representative reactor signals to evaluate the sensitivity of a kiloton-scale, gadolinium-doped Cherenkov detector as a remote monitor. The sensitivity of four detector configurations to nine reactor signal co…
The cosmic rays data collected using a large area plastic scintillator array ISMRAN (Indian Scintillator Matrix for Reactor AntiNeutrino) are presented. The data collected serve as a useful benchmark of cosmogenic background in a non-reactor environment for the future measurements of electron-antineutrinos to be performed using the ISMRAN setup. The zenith angle distribution of the atmospheric muons has been measured and compared with Monte Carlo expectations. The detector setup was further used to measure the lifetime distribution of stopped muons and extract their rates inside the detector m…
The Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO or JUNO-TAO) is a satellite detector for the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO). JUNO aims at simultaneously probing the two main frequencies of three-flavor neutrino oscillations, as well as their interference related to the mass ordering, at a distance of some 53 km from two powerful nuclear reactor complexes in China. Located near the Taishan-1 reactor, TAO independently measures the antineutrino energy spectrum of the reactor with unprecedented energy resolution. The TAO experiment will realize a neutrino detection rate of about 2000 …
Segmented antineutrino detectors placed near a compact research reactor provide an excellent opportunity to probe short-baseline neutrino oscillations and precisely measure the reactor antineutrino spectrum. Close proximity to a reactor combined with minimal overburden yield a high background environment that must be managed through shielding and detector technology. PROSPECT is a new experimental effort to detect reactor antineutrinos from the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy. The detector will use nove…
The Daya Bay experiment measures sin^2 2θ_13 using functionally identical antineutrino detectors located at distances of 300 to 2000 meters from the Daya Bay nuclear power complex. Each detector consists of three nested fluid volumes surrounded by photomultiplier tubes. These volumes are coupled to overflow tanks on top of the detector to allow for thermal expansion of the liquid. Antineutrinos are detected through the inverse beta decay reaction on the proton-rich scintillator target. A precise and continuous measurement of the detector's central target mass is achieved by monitoring the the …
DANSS is a one cubic meter highly segmented plastic scintillator detector. Its 2500 one meter long scintillator strips have a Gd-loaded reflective cover. The DANSS detector is placed under an industrial 3.1GW reactor of the Kalinin Nuclear Power plant 350km NW from Moscow. The distance to the core ia varied on-line from 10.7m to 12.7m. Recent results on searches for a sterile neutrino are presented as well as measurements of the antineutrino spectrum dependence on the fuel composition. All results are preliminary. PACS: 14.60.Pq, 14.60.St
Short-baseline reactor antineutrino experiments with shallow overburden usually have large cosmogenic neutron backgrounds. The Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO) is a ton-level liquid scintillator detector located at about 30 m from a core of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant. It will measure the reactor antineutrino spectrum with high precision and high energy resolution to provide a reference spectrum for JUNO and other reactor antineutrino experiments, and provide a benchmark measurement to test nuclear databases. Background is one of the critical concerns of TAO since the overburden is j…
SoLid, located at SCK-CEN in Mol, Belgium, is a reactor antineutrino experiment at a very short baseline of 5.5 -- 10m aiming at the search for sterile neutrinos and for high precision measurement of the neutrino energy spectrum of Uranium-235. It uses a novel approach using Lithium-6 sheets and PVT cubes as scintillators for tagging the Inverse Beta-Decay products (neutron and positron). Being located overground and close to the BR2 research reactor, the experiment faces a large amount of backgrounds. Efficient real-time background and noise rejection is essential in order to increase the sig…
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is designed to study neutrino mass hierarchy and measure three of the neutrino oscillation parameters with high precision using reactor antineutrinos. It is also able to study many other physical phenomena, including supernova neutrinos, solar neutrinos, geo-neutrinos, atmosphere neutrinos, and so forth. The central detector of JUNO contains 20,000~tons of liquid scintillator (LS) and about 18,000 20-inch photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), which is the largest liquid scintillator one under construction in the world up today. The energy resolution…
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory is a multipurpose neutrino experiment designed to determine neutrino mass hierarchy and precisely measure oscillation parameters by detecting reactor neutrinos from the Yangjiang and Taishan Nuclear Power Plants, observe supernova neutrinos, study the atmospheric, solar neutrinos and geo-neutrinos, and perform exotic searches, with a 20-thousand-ton liquid scintillator detector of unprecedented 3\% energy resolution (at 1 MeV) at 700-meter deep underground. In this proceeding, the subsystems of the experiment, including the cental detector, the onl…
In this study, the conceptual design and physics simulations of a near-field Water-based Liquid Scintillator (WbLS) detector placed 100 meters from the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP), currently under construction and aiming at being Turkey's first nuclear power plant, is presented. The ANPP is an excellent opportunity for neutrino studies and the development of an R&D program for neutrino detectors in Turkey. The Reactor Neutrino Experiments of Turkey (RNET) program includes a compact and portable detector with a 2.5-ton volume of WbLS and a ~30% photo-coverage, and the program is planned t…
