New Measurement of Antineutrino Oscillation with the Full Detector Configuration at Daya Bay

We report a new measurement of electron antineutrino disappearance using the fully constructed Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. The final two of eight antineutrino detectors were installed in the summer of 2012. Including the 404 days of data collected from October 2012 to November 2013 resulted in a total exposure of 6.9 x 10(5) GW(th) ton days, a 3.6 times increase over our previous results. Improvements in energy calibration limited variations between detectors to 0.2%. Removal of six Am-241-C-13 radioactive calibration sources reduced the background by a factor of 2 for the detectors in the experimental hall furthest from the reactors. Direct prediction of the antineutrino signal in the far detectors based on the measurements in the near detectors explicitly minimized the dependence of the measurement on models of reactor antineutrino emission. The uncertainties in our estimates of sin(2)2 theta(13) and vertical bar Delta m(ee)(2)vertical bar were halved as a result of these improvements. An analysis of the relative antineutrino rates and energy spectra between detectors gave sin(2)2 theta(13) = 0.084 +/- 0.005 and vertical bar Delta m(ee)(2)vertical bar = (2.42 +/- 0.11) x 10(-3) eV(2) in the three-neutrino framework

Measurement of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum at Daya Bay

This Letter reports a measurement of the flux and energy spectrum of electron antineutrinos from six 2.9 GW(th) nuclear reactors with six detectors deployed in two near (effective baselines 512 and 561 m) and one far (1579 m) underground experimental halls in the Daya Bay experiment. Using 217 days of data, 296 721 and 41 589 inverse beta decay (IBD) candidates were detected in the near and far halls, respectively. The measured IBD yield is (1.55 +/- 0.04) x 10(-18) cm(2) GW(-1) day(-1) or (5.92 +/- 0.14) x 10(-43) cm(2) fission(-1). This flux measurement is consistent with previous short-baseline reactor antineutrino experiments and is 0.946 +/- 0.022 (0.991 +/- 0.023) relative to the flux predicted with the Huber-Mueller (ILL-Vogel) fissile antineutrino model. The measured IBD positron energy spectrum deviates from both spectral predictions by more than 2 sigma over the full energy range with a local significance of up to similar to 4 sigma between 4-6 MeV. A reactor antineutrino spectrum of IBD reactions is extracted from the measured positron energy spectrum for model-independent predictions

New measurement of theta(13) via neutron capture on hydrogen at Daya Bay

This article reports an improved independent measurement of neutrino mixing angle theta(13) at the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. Electron antineutrinos were identified by inverse beta-decays with the emitted neutron captured by hydrogen, yielding a data set with principally distinct uncertainties from that with neutrons captured by gadolinium. With the final two of eight antineutrino detectors installed, this study used 621 days of data including the previously reported 217-day data set with six detectors. The dominant statistical uncertainty was reduced by 49%. Intensive studies of the cosmogenic muon-induced Li-9 and fast neutron backgrounds and the neutron-capture energy selection efficiency, resulted in a reduction of the systematic uncertainty by 26%. The deficit in the detected number of antineutrinos at the far detectors relative to the expected number based on the near detectors yielded sin(2)2 theta(13) = 0.071 +/- 0.011 in the three-neutrino-oscillation framework. The combination of this result with the gadolinium-capture result is also reported

Active cooling control of the CLEO detector using a hydrocarbon coolant farm

We describe a novel approach to particle-detector cooling in which a modular farm of active coolant-control platforms provides independent and regulated heat removal from four recently upgraded subsystems of the CLEO detector: the ring-imaging Cherenkov detector, the drift chamber, the silicon vertex detector, and the beryllium beam pipe. We report on several aspects of the system: the suitability of using the aliphatic-hydrocarbon solvent PF(TM)-200IG as a heat-transfer fluid, the sensor elements and the mechanical design of the farm platforms, a control system that is founded upon a commercial programmable logic controller employed in industrial process-control applications, and a diagnostic system based on virtual instrumentation. We summarize the system's performance and point out the potential application of the design to future high-energy physics apparatus.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, 5 PostScript figures; version accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research

Target Mass Monitoring and Instrumentation in the Daya Bay Antineutrino Detectors

The Daya Bay experiment measures sin^2 2{\theta}_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 fluid level in the overflow tanks with cameras and ultrasonic and capacitive sensors. In addition, the monitoring system records detector temperature and levelness at multiple positions. This monitoring information allows the precise determination of the detectors' effective number of target protons during data taking. We present the design, calibration, installation and in-situ tests of the Daya Bay real-time antineutrino detector monitoring sensors and readout electronics.Comment: 22 pages, 20 figures; accepted by JINST. Changes in v2: minor revisions to incorporate editorial feedback from JINS