Speaker
Description
Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO) is a ton scale liquid scintillator (LS) detector and proposed to precisely measure reactor neutrino energy spectrum with as high as possible energy resolution, which can provide a reference spectrum for Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) and a benchmark to verify the nuclear database. Tao is a satellite experiment of JUNO and will be installed near the reactor core with a distance of ~30 m. The detector uses 2.6 ton gadolinium-doped LS (1 ton fiducial volume) contained in a spherical acrylic vessel. To maximize the photon collection efficiency in the detector, 10 m2 SiPM array is proposed to fully cover the acrylic vessel and collect scintillation photons as many as possible. The preferred photon detection efficiency of SiPM should be larger than 50%, in order to achieve the desired energy resolution (1.5%/sqrt(E) photon statistical resolution). Meanwhile, the SiPMs will also be operated at low temperature (-50 degree or lower) to reduce the dark noise. The detector R&D has been started for more than one year, and the JUNO-TAO experiment is expected to be online in 2021. In this talk, an overview of the JUNO-TAO will be reported, then put the emphasis on the requirements of SiPMs, and ongoing R&D work related to SiPM characterizations and electronics readout.
