New measurement of $\theta_{13}$ via neutron capture on hydrogen at Daya Bay

TL;DR

This paper presents an improved measurement of the neutrino mixing angle θ13 at Daya Bay using neutron capture on hydrogen, reducing uncertainties and combining results with previous gadolinium-based measurements.

Contribution

It provides a novel independent measurement of θ13 using hydrogen captures, with significantly reduced statistical and systematic uncertainties.

Findings

Measured sin^2(2θ13) = 0.071 ± 0.011

Reduced statistical uncertainty by 49%

Reduced systematic uncertainty by 26%

Abstract

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 $^9$Li 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 $\sin^22\theta_{13} = 0.071 \pm 0.011$ in the three-neutrino-oscillation framework. The combination of this result with the gadolinium-capture result is also reported.