The hunt for theta13 at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant

Abstract

The Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment is located at the Daya Bay nuclear power plant in Shenzhen, China. The experiment deploys eight "identical" antineutrino detectors to measure antineutrino fluxes from six 2.9 GW_{th} reactor cores in three underground experimental halls at different distances. The target zone of the Daya Bay detector is filled with 20 t 0.1% Gd doped LAB liquid scintillator. The baseline uncorrelated detector uncertainty is ~0.38% using current experimental techniques. Daya Bay can reach a sensitivity of <0.01 to $sin^2 2theta_{13}$ with baseline uncertainties after 3 years of data taking.