Würzburg 2018 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 20: Neutrinophysik I

T 20.8: Vortrag

Montag, 19. März 2018, 17:50–18:05, Z6 - SR 2.012

Commissioning of the CONUS Experiment — •Janina Hakenmüller for the CONUS collaboration — Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany

The CONUS experiment is looking for COherent elastic Neutrino nUcleus Scattering with low-threshold high-purity Germanium (Ge) point contact detectors with a total mass of ∼4 kg. The experiment is set up at the nuclear power plant of Brokdorf, Germany, where a high antineutrino flux with energies within the coherent regime is provided. To measure a signal detectors with a sufficiently low energy threshold are required to be able to detect the tiny recoils of the nuclei hit by the antineutrinos. Moreover, the background has to be suppressed as much as possible to make the signal clearly visible. For CONUS, located at the shallow depth of maximal 45 meters of water equivalent (m w.e.), this is achieved with a shell-like passive shield and an active muon veto system. During the commissioning in the underground laboratory at Heidelberg (15 m w.e.) the detectors and the shield have been characterized and thoroughly tested. In the talk, the achieved background level is discussed and the remaining background contributions are examined. Monte Carlo simulations with the Geant4-based framework MaGe are employed to disentangle the cosmic-ray muon-induced contributions, background from the shield and intrinsic contaminations of the detectors. Special attention is payed to the neutron-induced background, as fast neutrons can mimic the signal. Moreover, detector characteristics like the dead layer thickness, depletion voltage and longterm stability are presented.