Measurement of neutrino source activity in the experiment BEST by calorimetric method

TL;DR

This paper details the development and application of a high-precision calorimetric system to measure the activity of a 51Cr neutrino source in the BEST experiment, achieving better than 1% accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel calorimetric method and system design for accurately measuring neutrino source activity in the BEST experiment.

Findings

Source activity measured as 3.41 MCi at start

Calorimetric system achieved better than 1% accuracy

Main factors affecting measurement accuracy identified

Abstract

Experiments to study non-standard properties of neutrinos using high-intensity artificial neutrino sources require high accuracy in determining their activity. A calorimetric system to determine the activity of a 51Cr neutrino source in the experiment BEST with an accuracy better than 1% was created. The design of the calorimetric system and the main factors affecting the accuracy of measurements are considered. The results of measurements of the activity of the source made for the BEST experiment are presented. The value of the source activity from calorimetric measurements was 3.41 MCi at the beginning of the experiment.