Status of the RENO Reactor Neutrino Experiment

Abstract

The Reactor Experiment for Neutrino Oscillation (RENO) is a reactor based neutrino oscillation experiment to measure the neutrino mixing angle θ13 using anti-neutrinos emitted from the Yonggwang nuclear power plant in Korea. Its thermal power output is 16.4 Gwth. The experimental setup consists of two identical 16-ton gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator detectors. The near and far detectors are placed roughly 290 m and 1.4 km from the center of the reactor array, respectively. The near detector is constructed at underground of a 70 m high hill and the far detector at underground of a 260 m high mountain. The construction of experimental halls and access tunnels for both near and far detector sites was completed in early 2009. The experiment is planned to start data-taking from early 2011. An expected number of observed anti-neutrinos is roughly 1300 per day and 100 per day in the far and near detector, respectively. We expect that an estimated systematic uncertainty is less than 0.5%. With three years of data taken, RENO is sensitive to measure sin2(2θ13)>0.02. Sensitivity is ten times better than the current limit obtained by Chooz. In this review, current status of RENO is presented.