Speaker
Description
Coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering with the CONUS experiment
speaker: Janina Hakenmüller for the CONUS collaboration
The CONUS experiment is located at the nuclear power plant of Brokdorf, Germany, at 17m
distance from the reactor core. It aims at detecting coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering with
four high-purity point contact Germanium detectors with a noise threshold in the range of a few
hundred eV inside an elaborate shield.
Before the setup of the experiment, the location, especially the potential neutron-induced
background, has been characterized thoroughly with Bonner Sphere measurements, gamma-ray
measurements with non-shielded Ge spectrometers as well as MC simulations. It will be shown in
the talk that inside the detector chamber no reactor thermal power correlated background is
expected.
Moreover, the low background rate of this shallow depth experiment is achieved by a multilayer
shield with increasing radiopurity towards the center including an active muon veto and layers of
borated polyethylene. All materials have been selected carefully beforehand via material screening.
The efficiency of these background suppression techniques will be shown as well as detailed studies
of the remaining background contributions using MC simulations.
The analysis and latest results of the first full physics run based on 1 month of reactor off time and 6
months of reactor on time will be presented. An outlook on planned upgrades and
midterm feasible physics goals goals with the CONUS setup will be given.
