Scintillation light production, propagation and detection in the Stereo reactor antineutrino experiment

Abstract

The Stereo experiment’s detector has been optimized to observe reactor antineutrinos via inverse beta decay within a 1800 liter volume filled with Gadolinium-doped organic liquid scintillator (LS). The main requirements for the scintillator in Stereo are compatibility with detector materials as the acrylic vessels, transparency, light yield, pulse shape discrimination capabilities as well as chemical and optical stability over several years of data taking. With these conditions in mind, the composition of the LS is mainly a mix of 75% LAB, 20%PXE and 5% DIN combined with the two wavelength-shifters PPO and Bis-MSB. The final admixture after the full scale production lead to an attenuation length of more than 5 meters for optical photons of 430 nm.The scintillation light produced in the Gd-loaded target volume and the Gd-free outer crown is detected by 48 eight inch PMTs on top of the detector. A correct performance of the PMTs has been ensured through several tests. Common characteristics for PMTs as gain, single photoelectron peak, time behaviour, dark rate and afterpulse ratio were measured resulting in a complete agreement with the manufacturer values.