DANSSino: a pilot version of the DANSS neutrino detector

TL;DR

DANSSino is a small, pilot solid-state detector for reactor antineutrinos, demonstrating effective operation and sensitivity with about 70 detected events daily at the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant.

Contribution

This work introduces DANSSino, a compact prototype demonstrating the feasibility of detecting reactor antineutrinos with a solid-state detector in a real nuclear power plant environment.

Findings

Operability confirmed at 11 m from reactor core

Detected about 70 IBD events per day

Signal-to-background ratio approximately one

Abstract

DANSSino is a reduced pilot version of a solid-state detector of reactor antineutrinos (to be created within the DANSS project and installed under the industrial 3 GW(th) reactor of the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant -- KNPP). Numerous tests performed at a distance of 11 m from the reactor core demonstrate operability of the chosen design and reveal the main sources of the background. In spite of its small size (20x20x100 ccm), the pilot detector turned out to be quite sensitive to reactor antineutrinos, detecting about 70 IBD events per day with the signal-to-background ratio about unity.