Measurement of the Electron Antineutrino Oscillation with 1958 Days of Operation at Daya Bay

D. Adey, Fengpeng An, A. B. Balantekin, H. R. Band, M. Bishai, S. Blyth, D. Cao, G. F. Cao, Jun Cao, Y. L. Chan,

Physical Review Letters · 2018 · 249 citations · 15 references

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Abstract

We report a measurement of electron antineutrino oscillation from the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment with nearly 4 million reactor ${\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}}_{e}$ inverse $\ensuremath{\beta}$ decay candidates observed over 1958 days of data collection. The installation of a flash analog-to-digital converter readout system and a special calibration campaign using different source enclosures reduce uncertainties in the absolute energy calibration to less than 0.5% for visible energies larger than 2 MeV. The uncertainty in the cosmogenic $^{9}\mathrm{Li}$ and $^{8}\mathrm{He}$ background is reduced from 45% to 30% in the near detectors. A detailed investigation of the spent nuclear fuel history improves its uncertainty from 100% to 30%. Analysis of the relative ${\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}}_{e}$ rates and energy spectra among detectors yields ${\mathrm{sin}}^{2}2{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{13}=0.0856\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.0029$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{m}_{32}^{2}=({2.471}_{\ensuremath{-}0.070}^{+0.068})\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{eV}}^{2}$ assuming the normal hierarchy, and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{m}_{32}^{2}=\ensuremath{-}({2.575}_{\ensuremath{-}0.070}^{+0.068})\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{eV}}^{2}$ assuming the inverted hierarchy.

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