Goals and Methods

_{Daya Bay: Goals and Methods}

The goal of the Daya Bay nuclear reactor antineutrino experiment is to determine sin²2θ₁₃ with a sensitivity of ≤0.01.

How to Reach a Precision of sin²2θ₁₃ = 0.01 in Daya Bay?

Increasing Statistics:

1. Use more powerful nuclear reactors.

We hope to accomplish this by measuring deficit in the

rate and spectral distortion.

2. Utilize larger target mass, hence larger detectors.

Suppress Background:

1. Go deeper underground to gain overburden for reducing cosmogenic background.

2. Use active shield around the target.

Reduce Systematic Uncertainties:

- Reactor-related:

- Detector-related:

1. Optimize baseline for the best sensitivity and smaller residual reactor-related errors.

2. Use near and far detectors to do a relative measurement.

1. Use “Identical” pairs of detectors.

2. Incorporate a comprehensive program in calibration/monitoring of detectors.

So, how do our nuclear reactors and detectors look like?

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