Search

The RENO experiment has been in operation since August 2011 to measure reactor antineutrino disappearance using identical near and far detectors. For accurate measurements of neutrino mixing parameters and efficient data taking, it is crucial to monitor and control the detector in real time. Environmental conditions also need to be monitored for stable operation of detectors as well as for safety reasons. In this paper, we report the design, hardware, operation, and performance of the slow control system.

Reactor experiment for neutrino oscillation (RENO) began data-taking from August 2011. It successfully observed reactor antineutrino disappearance in April 2012 to measure the smallest mixing angle of θ 13 . Two identical detectors, one at near location and the other at far location, are constructed at the Yonggwang nuclear power plant in South Korea, to compare the observed reactor neutrino fluxes. Each RENO detector is filled with 16 mass tons of Gadolinium loaded liquid scintillator (GdLS) in the neutrino target region, and with 28 mass tons of unloaded liquid scintillator (LS) in the γ - catcher region surrounding the target. LS was developed to satisfy chemical, physical, optical properties, and safety requirements. Linear alkyl benzene (LAB) was chosen as a solvent because of its high flash-point, sufficient light yield, and being environmentally friendly. GdLS is carefully developed to keep a long attenuation length and high light yield for a long time period. In this paper, we report the characteristics and mass production of the RENO LS and GdLS.

The aim of the RENO (Reactor Experiment for Neutrino Oscillation) is to measure the smallest neutrino mixing angle, θ 13 . The RENO detector consists of four concentric cylindrical layers: the target, γ - catcher , buffer and veto. Acrylic is used for the target and γ - catcher vessels, both of which contain liquid scintillator. Acrylic was chosen because it has good transmittance in the wavelength range of 400 – 430 nm and also does not react with liquid-scintillating solvents. In order to reduce systematic uncertainties, the target volume should be identical to a level of less than 0.1% between the near and far detectors. Furthermore, the acrylic vessel should not have any leaks. In this paper, we investigate the optical properties, design and construction of the acrylic vessels used in the RENO detector.

The KEK to Kamioka long-baseline neutrino experiment (K2K) has begun its investigation of neutrino oscillations suggested by atmospheric neutrino observations. Twenty-eight neutrino events have been detected in coincidence with the expected arrival time of the beam in the 22.5 kt fiducial volume of Super--Kamiokande, the far detector at 250 km distance. The expectation is 37.8+3.5-3.8, derived using measurements of neutrino interactions in a near detector and extrapolation using a beam simulation validated by a measurement of pion kinematics after production and focusing. The background is of order 10^-3 events., Comment: 6 pages, 3 embedded figures, LaTeX with RevTeX style, submitted to PRL. This version is As Submitted

We describe the construction and performance of a scintillating fiber detector used in the near detector for the K2K (KEK to Kamioka, KEK E362) long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. The detector uses 3.7 m long and 0.692 mm diameter scintillating fiber coupled to image-intensifier tubes (IIT), and a CCD camera readout system. Fiber sheet production and detector construction began in 1997, and the detector was commissioned in March, 1999. Results from the first K2K runs confirm good initial performance : position resolution is estimated to be about 0.8 mm, and track finding efficiency is $98 \pm 2$ % for long tracks (i.e., those which intersect more than 5 fiber planes). The hit efficiency was estimated to be $92 \pm 2$ % using cosmic-ray muons, after noise reduction at the offline stage. The possibility of using the detector for particle identification is also discussed., Comment: In total 21 pages with 18 figures. THis is the proceedings for "The 7th International Conference on Instrumentation for Colliding Beam Physics", held on Hamamatsu, Japan, Nov. 15-19, 1999