The Daya Bay Antineutrino Detector Filling System and Liquid Mass Measurement

Abstract

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 to the number of protons in the liquid scintillator target. A precision detector filling system was developed to simultaneously fill the three liquid zones of the antineutrino detectors and measure the relative target mass between detectors to <0.02%. This paper describes the design, operation, and performance of the system and the resulting precision measurement of the detectors' target liquid masses.

arXiv comment27 pages, 17 figures; accepted by JINST. v2 incorporates minor revisions requested by JINST

References in corpus (5)

• Observation of electron-antineutrino disappearance at Daya Bay
• Improved Measurement of Electron Antineutrino Disappearance at Daya Bay
• Acrylic Target Vessels for a High-Precision Measurement of theta13 with the Daya Bay Antineutrino Detectors
• Daya Bay Antineutrino Detector Gas System
• Target Mass Monitoring and Instrumentation in the Daya Bay Antineutrino Detectors

Cited by in corpus (4)

• The Detector System of The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment
• The PROSPECT Reactor Antineutrino Experiment
• New measurement of ${\theta }_{13}$ via neutron capture on hydrogen at Daya Bay
• Assembly and Installation of the Daya Bay Antineutrino Detectors