5 research outputs found
Search for sterile neutrinos at the DANSS experiment
DANSS is a highly segmented 1~m 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~ 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 per day at the closest position with the cosmic
background less than 3. The inverse beta decay process is used to detect
. Sterile neutrinos are searched for assuming the model
(3 active and 1 sterile ). The exclusion area in the plane is obtained using a ratio of positron energy
spectra collected at different distances. Therefore results do not depend on
the shape and normalization of the reactor spectrum, as well
as on the detector efficiency. Results are based on 966 thousand antineutrino
events collected at 3 distances from the reactor core. The excluded area covers
a wide range of the sterile neutrino parameters up to
in the most sensitive region.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, version accepted for publicatio