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Description
Neutrino research is relatively new and still not well-known part of physics. Therefore, many neutrino detectors have been developed to investigate neutrino properties. This paper describes present status of highly-segmented scintillating detector S3, which was developed as a common effort of IEAP CTU in Prague and JINR, Dubna. Since detector material meets strict safety rules of nuclear power plant, it can be installed in the close vicinity from the reactor, which is the most intense man-controlled source of antineutrinos.
In order to test the proposed detector design, a simplified 2-channel version of S3 prototype was constructed. Numerous measurements were performed using the prototype, such as background characterization, verification of proposed shielding and investigation of neutrino-like events. Based on these measurements, 80-channel S3 detector was designed and constructed. While classical PMTs were used in the prototype, new progressive photoelements were utilized in the detector for signal collection. Readout electronics for 80-channel detector is based on multichannel system (100 MS/s, 15 bits), which was developed by IEAP CTU in Prague. First measurements were carried out using the simplifier version of multichannel system (24 channels). Another option of DAQ system is based on VME module (62.5 MS/s, 12 bits).
Since detector can be installed near the reactor (~ 10 m), it can be used for study of neutrino properties with higher efficiency, investigation of neutrino oscillations on short baselines, verification of sterile neutrino hypothesis and online measurement of the reactor power and fuel composition. Therefore, detector can be of great importance to fundamental and applied research.
