https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202125311011
Design and first tests of the S3 detector of reactor antineutrinos
1
Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic
2
Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic
3
Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic
4
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
Published online: 19 November 2021
The new experiment S3 devoted to the study of reactor antineutrinos was designed and constructed as a common activity of IEAP CTU in Prague and JINR (Dubna). The S3 detector is a compact, highly segmented polystyrene-based scintillating detector composed of 80 detector elements with a gadolinium neutron converter between elements layers. A positron and a neutron are produced in an inverse beta decay initiated with an electron antineutrino in the detector. A modular multi-channel fast ADC was developed for the data acquisition for the whole 80-channel S3 detector and the 4-channel cosmic veto system. The detector meets very strict safety rules of nuclear power plants and can be installed in a chamber located immediately under the reactor. The close vicinity from the reactor enables to study neutrino properties with a higher efficiency, to investigate neutrino oscillations at short baselines and try to verify the hypothesis of a sterile neutrino. The details of the design and construction of the S3 detector, as well as properties of the modular multi-channel fast ADC system, and first tests of the device are presented.
Key words: S3 experiment / reactor neutrinos / neutrino oscillations
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
