The Czech Republic and JINR. Long-Term Fruitful

Collaboration of the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems with the Czech
Republic
The collaboration between DLNP JINR and institutions of the Czech Republic exists
in the framework of neutrino, particle and nuclear physics, education and applied research.
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Neutrinos are fundamental particles which are of paramount importance in modern
physics of elementary particles, grand unifying theories, cosmology and astrophysics. Their
exceptional role is driven by the smallness of their masses and sharply different mixing flavor
U-matrix (known in the literature as Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata (PMNS) matrix):
Non zero off-diagonal elements of PMNS mixing matrix lead to a phenomenon of
“neutrino oscillations” - the phenomenon predicted in Dubna by Bruno Pontecorvo in 1957
and discovered only about 10 years ago by experiments with solar, atmospheric, reactor and
accelerator neutrinos. Nowadays, precision measurement of the neutrino mixing matrix
parameters is of utmost importance.
The Daya Bay reactor antineutrino experiment is aimed at measuring one of the
key parameters of the PMNS matrix, the θ13 angle, with the ultimate precision better than 1%.
The layout of the experiment requires operation of 8 completely equivalent Antineutrino
Detectors (AD) situated in the vicinity of Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants
(China) with the total thermal power about 17.4 GW.
The ADs are grouped in two “near” and one “far” detectors consisting of 2+2 and 4
ADs, respectively. Each AD consists of the target liquid Gd-doped scintillator (20 tons), the
gamma-catcher (20 tons), and buffer (40 tons). The total weight of each AD is about 100 tons.
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