Initial results from the CHOOZ long baseline reactor neutrino oscillation experiment

• Published in: Physics letters. B Vol. 420; no. 3; pp. 397 - 404
• Main Authors: Apollonio, M, Baldini, A, Bemporad, C, Caffau, E, Cei, F, Déclais, Y, de Kerret, H, Dieterle, B, Etenko, A, George, J, Giannini, G, Grassi, M, Kozlov, Y, Kropp, W, Kryn, D, Laiman, M, Lane, C.E, Lefièvre, B, Machulin, I, Martemyanov, A, Martemyanov, V, Mikaelyan, L, Nicolò, D, Obolensky, M, Pazzi, R, Pieri, G, Price, L, Riley, S, Reeder, R, Sabelnikov, A, Santin, G, Skorokhvatov, M, Sobel, H, Steele, J, Steinberg, R, Sukhotin, S, Tomshaw, S, Veron, D, Vyrodov, V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 26.02.1998
• Subjects: Neutrino mass; Neutrino mixing; Neutrino oscillations; Reactor; 28.50.Hw; Neutrino oscillations; Reactor; Neutrino mixing; 14.16.P; Neutrino mass
• ISSN: 0370-2693; 1873-2445
• DOI: 10.1016/S0370-2693(97)01476-7

Initial results are presented from CHOOZ 1 The CHOOZ experiment is named after the new nuclear power station operated by Électricité de France (EdF) near the village of Chooz in the Ardennes region of France. 1 , a long-baseline reactor-neutrino vacuum-oscillation experiment. The data reported here were taken during the period March to October 1997, when the two reactors ran at combined power levels varying from zero to values approaching their full rated power of 8.5 GW (thermal). Electron antineutrinos from the reactors were detected by a liquid scintillation calorimeter located at a distance of about 1 km . The detector was constructed in a tunnel protected from cosmic rays by a 300 MWE rock overburden. This massive shielding strongly reduced potentially troublesome backgrounds due to cosmic-ray muons, leading to a background rate of about one event per day, more than an order of magnitude smaller than the observed neutrino signal. From the statistical agreement between detected and expected neutrino event rates, we find (at 90% confidence level) no evidence for neutrino oscillations in the ν e disappearance mode for the parameter region given approximately by Δm 2>0.9 10 −3 eV 2 for maximum mixing and sin 22 θ>0.18 for large Δm 2.