I. R. Barabanov, V. I. Beresnev, V. N. Kornoukhov, E. A. Yanovich, G. T. Zatsepin, N. A. Danilov, G. V. Korpusov, G. V. Kostikova, Y. S. Krylov, V. V. Yakshin
Rare-earth (Yb/Gd) complexes with neutral organophosphorus ligands are briefly discussed for their application in liquid scintillation technique. To evaluate the principle feasibility of a high rare-earth loaded scintillator, the ytterbium chloride complexes with tri-isoamylphosphine oxides were synthesized. Relative scintillation efficiency (RSE) for two Yb concentrations (78 and 88 g/L) was measured by means of the internal conversion electron exitation from Cs-137. The results obtained were 50 and 40% respectively.
Organic liquid scintillators are used in many neutrino physics experiments of the past and present. In particular for low energy neutrinos when realtime and energy information are required, liquid scintillators have several advantages compared to other technologies. In many cases the organic liquid needs to be loaded with metal to enhance the neutrino signal over background events. Several metal loaded scintillators of the past suffered from chemical and optical instabilities, limiting the performance of these neutrino detectors. Different ways of metal loading are described in the article wit…
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.
Several liters of an organic liquid scintillator (LS) loaded with Nd have been made. We report on performances of this scintillator in terms of optical properties, radiopurity and light yield for a Nd concentration of 6.5 g/l. A possible application to search for the 150Nd neutrinoless double beta decay with a 10-ton scale LS detector is discussed together with further improvements.
A novel formulation to dope organic liquid scintillators (OLS) with indium at concentrations up to 10% is presented: it is based on specific indium carboxylate compounds adequately synthesized. The produced In-OLS has been characterized: it has light yield 8500 ph/MeV at indium concentration 5.5% and light attenuation length of 2,5 m at wavelength of 430 nm. The scintillator properties were stable during all time of investigation (~ 1 years). The produced In-OLS is compared to other In-OLS formulations and shows superior performances. The developed methodic to metal dope OLS can be easily exte…
Stainless steel is a candidate of the inner surface of the storage container for LAB-based Gadolinium loaded liquid scintillator (Gd-LS) to be used in the JSNS$^2$ neutrino detector. Aging effect on Gd concentration of Gd-LS was investigated with the Gd-LS sample stored in the passivated stainless steel bottle in two independent methods. The direct comparison of the neutron capture time measurement showed that there is no significant degradation of the capture time after 602 days aging. Titration was performed to measure Gd concentration, and the result after 466 days aging is consistent with …
The search for neutrinoless double-beta decay is an important part of the global neutrino physics program. One double-beta decay isotope currently under investigation is 100Mo. In this article, we discuss the results of a feasibility study investigating the use of molybdenum-loaded liquid scintillator. A large, molybdenum-loaded liquid scintillator detector is one potential design for a low-background, internal-source neutrinoless double-beta decay search with 100Mo. The program outlined in this article included the selection of a solute containing molybdenum, a scintillating solvent and the e…
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.
A new experiment based on tin-loaded scintillator is proposed to measure the 2nu double beta decay half-life of Sn-124 for the first time. Measurements of long term stabilitiy and optical properties of the produced scintillator are presented. In addition a sophisticated estimation of the background due to cosmic ray spallation on tin has been performed. It is shown that such a measurement is feasible and can reach half-lives of 10^22 years, thus covering all current theoretical predictions for this decay mode.
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…
Scintillators capable of detecting both neutrons and gamma-rays have generated considerable interest. In particular, the use of such scintillators with silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) enables low-power and compact-geometry applications. Three types of Li-loaded scintillators, CLYC, CLLB, and NaIL, have been tested with a custom-designed SiPM array for temperatures between --20 and 50$^{\circ}$C. The array consists of four 6x6~mm$^2$ SiPMs arranged in a 2x2 configuration. Pulse shape discrimination is used for neutron and gamma identification. Because the pulse shape changes with temperature, …
The characterization of a liquid scintillator incorporating an aqueous solution of enriched lithium chloride to produce a scintillator with 0.40% Li-6 is presented, including the performance of the scintillator in terms of its optical properties and neutron response. The scintillator was incorporated into a fast neutron spectrometer, and the light output spectra from 2.5 MeV, 14.1 MeV, and Cf-252 neutrons were measured using capture-gated coincidence techniques. The spectrometer was operated without coincidence to perform thermal neutron measurements. Possible improvements in spectrometer perf…
Plastic scintillators that can discriminate between gamma rays, fast neutrons, and thermal neutrons were synthesized and characterized while considering the balance between processing and performance at the kilogram scale. These trade-offs were necessitated by the inclusion of 0.1 wt. % lithium-6 to enable detection of thermal neutrons. The synthesis and processing of these plastic scintillators on the kilogram scale required consideration of many factors. First, a comonomer (methacrylic acid) was used to solubilize salts of lithium-6, which allow for a thermal-neutron capture reaction that pr…
Scintillator doped with a high neutron-capture cross-section material can be used to detect neutrons via their resulting gamma rays. Examples of such detectors using liquid scintillator have been successfully used in high-energy physics experiments. However, a liquid scintillator can leak and is not as amenable to modular or complex shapes as a solid scintillator. Polystyrene-based scintillators from a variety of gadolinium compounds with varying concentrations were polymerized in our laboratory. The light output, emission spectra, and attenuation length of our samples were measured and light …
Organic scintillators doped with capture agents provide a detectable signal for neutrons over a broad energy range. This work characterizes the fast and slow neutron response of EJ-254, an organic plastic scintillator with 5% natural boron loading by weight. For fast neutrons, the primary mechanism for light generation in organic scintillators is n-p elastic scattering. To study the fast neutron response, the proton light yield of EJ-254 was measured at the 88-Inch Cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Using a broad-spectrum neutron source and a double time-of-flight technique, t…
This work reports the production and characterization of lithium-loaded liquid scintillator (LiLS) for the Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment (PROSPECT). Fifty-nine 90 liter batches of LiLS (${}^6{\rm Li}$ mass fraction 0.082%$\pm$0.001%) were produced and samples from all batches were characterized by measuring their optical absorbance relative to air, light yield relative to a pure liquid scintillator reference, and pulse shape discrimination capability. Fifty-seven batches passed the quality assurance criteria and were used for the PROSPECT experiment.
We report on the development of a fast neutron detector using a liquid scintillator doped with enriched Li-6. The lithium was introduced in the form of an aqueous LiCl micro-emulsion with a di-isopropylnaphthalene-based liquid scintillator. A Li-6 concentration of 0.15 % by weight was obtained. A 125 mL glass cell was filled with the scintillator and irradiated with fission-source neutrons. Fast neutrons may produce recoil protons in the scintillator, and those neutrons that thermalize within the detector volume can be captured on the Li-6. The energy of the neutron may be determined by the li…
Organic liquid scintillators are used in a wide variety of applications in experimental nuclear and particle physics. Boron-loaded scintillators are particularly useful for detecting neutron captures, due to the high thermal neutron capture cross section of $^{10}$B. These scintillators are commonly used in neutron detectors, including the DarkSide-50 neutron veto, where the neutron may produce a signal when it scatters off protons in the scintillator or when it captures on $^{10}$B. Reconstructing the energy of these recoils is complicated by scintillation quenching. Understanding how nuclear…
Scintillator detectors can be used in experiments searching for neutrinoless double beta decay. A wide variety of double beta decay candidate isotopes can be made into scintillators or can be loaded into scintillators. Experimental programs developing liquid xenon, inorganic crystals, and Nd-loaded liquid scintillator are described in this review. Experiments with 48Ca and 150Nd benefit from their high endpoint which places the neutrinoless double beta decay signal above most backgrounds from natural radioactivity.
A Methanol-mediated Room-Temperature Synthesis of Tellurium-Loaded Liquid Scintillators for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Search
Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院高能物理研究所）；State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics (Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS)（粒子探测与电子学国家重点实验室（中国科学院高能物理研究所））；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学）
A new experiment, which is called as NEOS (NEutrino Oscillation at Short baseline), is proposed on the site of Hanbit reactors at Yonggwang, South Korea, to investigate a reactor antineutrino anomaly. A homogeneous NEOS detector having a 1000-L target volume has been constructed and deployed at the tendon gallery ~25 m away from the reactor core. A linear alkylbenzene (LAB) is used as a main base solvent of the NEOS detector. Furthermore, a di-isopropylnaphthalene (DIN) is added to improve the light output and pulse shape discrimination (PSD) ability. The ratio of LAB to DIN is 90:10. PPO (3 g…
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…
We describe the work carried out at MPIK to design, model, build and characterize a prototype cell filled with a novel indium-loaded scintillator of interest for real-time low energy solar neutrino spectroscopy. First, light propagation in optical modules was studied with experiments and Monte Carlo simulations. Subsequently a 5 cm x 5 cm x 100 cm prototype detector was set up and the optical performances of several samples were measured. We first tested a benchmark PXE-based scintillator, which performed an attenuation length of ~ 4.2 m and a photo-electron yield of ~ 730 pe/MeV. Then we meas…
Pulse shape discrimination in liquid scintillator detectors is a well-established technique for the discrimination of heavy particles from light particles. Nonetheless, it is not efficient in the separation of electrons and positrons, as they give rise to indistinguishable scintillator responses. This inefficiency can be overtaken through the exploitation of the formation of ortho-Positronium (o-Ps), which alters the time profile of light pulses induced by positrons. We characterized the o-Ps properties in the most commonly used liquid scintillators, i.e. PC, PXE, LAB, OIL and PC + PPO. In add…
This paper describes the design and performance of a 50 liter, two-segment $^{6}$Li-loaded liquid scintillator detector that was designed and operated as prototype for the PROSPECT (Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum) Experiment. The two-segment detector was constructed according to the design specifications of the experiment. It features low-mass optical separators, an integrated source and optical calibration system, and materials that are compatible with the $^{6}$Li-doped scintillator developed by PROSPECT. We demonstrate a high light collection of 850$\pm$20 PE/MeV, an energy reso…
We report on the design and performance of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) "Screener", a small liquid scintillator detector consisting of $\approx 23$ kg of LAB-based gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator (GdLS) to be used in the LZ Outer Detector. The Outer Detector will be filled with 17.3 tonnes of GdLS and will surround the central liquid xenon time projection chamber of LZ. Its primary function will be to veto neutron single-scatter events in the liquid xenon which could mimic a WIMP dark matter signal. To meet the requirements for the Outer Detector, the radioimpurity levels in the GdLS must be kept…
Study on the shielding efficiency of water, HDPE, and boron-loaded HDPE for neutron background of plastic scintillator neutrino detector
School of Physics, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学物理学院）；Institut Franco-Chinois de l'Énergie Nucléaire , Sun Yat-sen University（中法核能学院，中山大学）；School of Science, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学科学学院）
The KamLAND-Zen 800 experiment is searching for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of $^{136}$Xe by using $^{136}$Xe-loaded liquid scintillator. The liquid scintillator is enclosed inside a balloon made of thin, transparent, low-radioactivity film that we call Inner Balloon (IB). The IB, apart from guaranteeing the liquid containment, also allows to minimize the background from cosmogenic muon-spallation products and $^{8}$B solar neutrinos. Indeed these events could contribute to the total counts in the region of interest around the Q-value of the double-beta decay of $^{136}$Xe. In this pape…
Cosmic-ray muons produce various radioisotopes when passing through material. These spallation products can be backgrounds for rare event searches such as in solar neutrino, double-beta decay, and dark matter search experiments. The KamLAND-Zen experiment searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 745kg of xenon dissolved in liquid scintillator. The experiment includes dead-time-free electronics with a high efficiency for detecting muon-induced neutrons. The production yields of different radioisotopes are measured with a combination of delayed coincidence techniques, newly developed muon …
Quenching of light emission from an LAB based scintillator by the addition of organic amines and carboxylic acids is examined. Chemical functional groups of the quenching agents play an important role in this reduction. It is shown that "salt" formation at a 1:1 mole ratio in a mixed amine-acid system, reduces quenching by a factor of 2. Supporting NMR spectra are presented. This "quenching neutralization" has the potential to reduce the light loss incurred when metals complexed with quenching agents are loaded into organic scintillators.
SNO+ is a neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0νββ$) search experiment using 780 tonnes of tellurium-loaded liquid scintillator. The experiment is currently collecting data in the first of three planned phases, in which the detector is filled with ultrapure water. During this phase, the cleanliness of the water can be assayed using in situ measurements of $^{214}$Bi and $^{208}$Tl (daughter nuclei of $^{238}$U and $^{232}$Th, respectively). These results will both inform preparation for scintillator fill and support water phase physics analyses like the search for invisible nucleon decay modes.
The SNO+ experiment, located in SNOLAB, 2 kilometers underground in the Creighton mine, near Sudbury, Canada, is a large scale neutrino detector whose main purpose is to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay and thus probe the Majorana nature of the neutrino. With 780 tons of liquid scintillator loaded with tellurium, SNO+ aims at exploring the Majorana neutrino mass parameter space down to the inverted mass hierarchy region. The versatility of the SNO+ detector also allows it to detect solar and reactor neutrinos, provide a measurement of the geoneutrino flux, detect galactic core-collaps…
An approach to developing a feasible neutrinoless double beta decay experiment capable of probing Majorana masses in the regime of the nondegenerate normal neutrino mass hierarchy is proposed. For such an experiment, this study suggests that 130Te is likely the best choice of candidate isotope and that metal-loaded liquid scintillator likely represents the best choice of detector technology. An evaluation of the required loading, scintillator properties and detector configuration is presented. While further development of Te-loaded liquid scintillator is required, recent progress in this area …
A reliable and consistently reproducible technique to fabricate $^{222}$Rn-loaded radioactive sources ($\sim$0.5-1 kBq just after fabrication) based on liquid scintillator (LS), with negligible amounts of LS quencher contaminants, was implemented. This work demonstrates the process that will be used during the Borexino detector's upcoming calibration campaign, with one or several $\sim$100 Bq such sources will be deployed at different positions in its fiducial volume, currently showing unprecedented levels of radiopurity. These sources need to fulfill stringent requirements of $^{222}$Rn activ…
A liquid scintillator base experiment KamLAND-Zen has set a lower limit on neutrinoless double beta decay half-life, and upgrade project KamLAND-Zen 800 has started in 2019. Unfortunately, this project expects some backgrounds, and one of the main backgrounds is beta/gamma-ray from 214Bi in container of xenon loaded liquid scintillator (mini-balloon). In order to reject the background, we suggest using scintillation film for the future mini-balloon. If we can tag alpha-ray from 214Po by scintillation detection, we can eliminate 214Bi events by delayed coincidence analysis. Recently, it was rep…
The attenuation length measuring device was constructed by using oscilloscope and LabVIEW for signal acquisition and processing. The performance of the device has been tested with a variety of ways, the test results show that the set-up has a good stability and high precision (sigma/mean reached 0.4 percent). Besides, the accuracy of the measurement system will decrease by about 17 percent if a filter is used. The attenuation length of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator (Gd-LS) was measured as 15.10 plus or minus 0.35 m where Gd-LS was heavily used in Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment. In additi…
The JSNS$^{2}$ (J-PARC Sterile Neutrino Search at J-PARC Spallation Neutron Source) experiment will search for neutrino oscillations over a 24 m short baseline at J-PARC. The JSNS$^{2}$ inner detector will be filled with 17 tons of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator (LS) with an additional 31 tons of unloaded LS in the intermediate $γ$-catcher and outer veto volumes. JSNS$^{2}$ has chosen Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) as an organic solvent because of its chemical properties. The unloaded LS was produced at a refurbished facility, originally used for scintillator production by the RENO experime…
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
In this work we present an elegant solution for a scintillation counter to be integrated into a cryogenic system. Its distinguishing feature is the absence of a continuous light guide coupling the scintillation and the photodetector parts, operating at cryogenic and room temperatures respectively. The prototype detector consists of a plastic scintillator with glued-in wavelength-shifting fiber located inside a cryostat, a Geiger-mode Avalanche Photodiode (G-APD) outside the cryostat, and a lens system guiding the scintillation light re-emitted by the fiber to the G-APD through optical windows …
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a multi-purpose neutrino experiment, will use 20 kt liquid scintillator (LS). To achieve the physics goal of determining the neutrino mass ordering, 3$\%$ energy resolution at 1 MeV is required. This puts strict requirements on the LS light yield and the transparency. Four LS purification steps have been designed and mid-scale plants have been built at Daya Bay. To examine the performance of the purified LS and find the optimized LS composition, the purified LS was injected to the antineutrino detector 1 in the experimental hall 1 (EH1-AD1)…
This paper presents studies of the performance of water-based liquid scintillator in both 1-kt and 50-kt detectors. Performance is evaluated in comparison to both pure water Cherenkov detectors and a nominal model for pure scintillator detectors. Performance metrics include energy, vertex, and angular resolution, along with a metric for ability to separate the Cherenkov from the scintillation signal, as being representative of various particle identification capabilities that depend on the Cherenkov / scintillation ratio. We also modify the time profile of scintillation light to study the same…
The SNO+ experiment is located at SNOLAB in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. It will employ 780 tonnes of liquid scintillator loaded, in its initial phase, with 1.3 tonnes of $^{130}$Te (0.5% by mass) for a low-background and high-isotope-mass search for neutrino-less double beta decay. SNO+ uses the acrylic vessel and PMT array of the SNO detector with several experimental upgrades and necessary adaptations to fill with liquid scintillator. The SNO+ technique can be scaled up with a future high loading Phase II, able to probe to the bottom of the inverted hierarchy parameter space for effective Majo…
We present a technique for separating double beta-decay from $^8$B solar neutrino interactions in a liquid scintillator detector. The technique uses position and time of photo-electrons (PEs) to separate directional Cherenkov light from isotropic sintillation light in the reconstruction of the kinematics of candidate events. Here we introduce a Cherenkov-scintillation space time boundary defined as the light cone in the 2-dimensional space of the arrival time and the polar angle of each PE with respect to the axis from the center of the detector to the vertex. The PEs located near the boundary…
DANSS is a highly segmented 1~m${}^3$ plastic scintillator detector. Its 2500 one meter long scintillator strips have a Gd-loaded reflective cover. The DANSS detector is placed under an industrial 3.1~$\mathrm{GW_{th}}$ reactor of the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant 350~km NW from Moscow. The distance to the core is varied on-line from 10.7~m to 12.7~m. The reactor building provides about 50~m water-equivalent shielding against the cosmic background. DANSS detects almost 5000 $\widetildeν_e$ per day at the closest position with the cosmic background less than 3$\%$. The inverse beta decay process …
The ability to separately identify the Cherenkov and scintillation light components produced in scintillating mediums holds the potential for a major breakthrough in neutrino detection technology, allowing development of a large, low-threshold, directional detector with a broad physics program. The CHESS (CHErenkov / Scintillation Separation) experiment employs an innovative detector design with an array of small, fast photomultiplier tubes and state-of-the-art electronics to demonstrate the reconstruction of a Cherenkov ring in a scintillating medium based on photon hit time and detected phot…
SNO+ is a large liquid scintillator-based experiment located 2km underground at SNOLAB, Sudbury, Canada. It reuses the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory detector, consisting of a 12m diameter acrylic vessel which will be filled with about 780 tonnes of ultra-pure liquid scintillator. Designed as a multipurpose neutrino experiment, the primary goal of SNO+ is a search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay (0$νββ$) of 130Te. In Phase I, the detector will be loaded with 0.3% natural tellurium, corresponding to nearly 800 kg of 130Te, with an expected effective Majorana neutrino mass sensitivity in th…
To maximize the light yield of the liquid scintillator (LS) for the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a 20 t LS sample was produced in a pilot plant at Daya Bay. The optical properties of the new LS in various compositions were studied by replacing the gadolinium-loaded LS in one antineutrino detector. The concentrations of the fluor, PPO, and the wavelength shifter, bis-MSB, were increased in 12 steps from 0.5 g/L and <0.01 mg/L to 4 g/L and 13 mg/L, respectively. The numbers of total detected photoelectrons suggest that, with the optically purified solvent, the bis-MSB concen…
We describe the design and assembly of the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, a direct detection search for cosmic WIMP dark matter particles. The centerpiece of the experiment is a large liquid xenon time projection chamber sensitive to low energy nuclear recoils. Rejection of backgrounds is enhanced by a Xe skin veto detector and by a liquid scintillator Outer Detector loaded with gadolinium for efficient neutron capture and tagging. LZ is located in the Davis Cavern at the 4850' level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, USA. We describe the major subsystems of the experi…
