Development of a gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator for the Hanaro short baseline prototype detector

Abstract

We propose a new experiment on the site of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) located at Daejeon, Korea. The Hanaro short baseline (SBL) nuclear reactor with a thermal power output 30 MW is used to investigate a reactor neutrino anomaly. A Hanaro SBL prototype detector having a 60-l volume has been constructed ∼6 m away from the reactor core. A gadolinium (Gd)-loaded liquid scintillator (LS) is used as an active material to trigger events. The selection of the LS is guided by physical and technical requirements, as well as safety considerations. A linear alkyl benzene (LAB) is used as a base solvent of the Hanaro SBL prototype detector. Three g/l of PPO and 30 mg/l of bis-MSB are dissolved to formulate the LAB-based LS. Then, a 0.5% gadolinium (Gd) complex with carboxylic acid is loaded into the LAB-based LS by using the liquidliquid extraction method. In this paper, we will summarize all the characteristics of the Gd-loaded LAB-based LS for the Hanaro prototype detector.