Production and optical properties of liquid scintillator for the JSNS2 experiment

Abstract

The JSNS(2) (J-PARC Sterile Neutrino Search at J-PARC Spallation Neutron Source) experiment will search for neutrino oscillations over a 24 m short baseline at J-PARC. The JSNS(2) inner detector will be filled with 17 tons of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator (LS) with an additional 31 tons of unloaded LS in the intermediate gamma-catcher and outer veto volumes. JSNS(2) has chosen Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) as an organic solvent because of its chemical properties. The unloaded LS was produced at a refurbished facility, originally used for scintillator production by the RENO experiment. JSNS(2) plans to use ISO tanks for the storage and transportation of the LS. In this paper, we describe the LS production, and present measurements of its optical properties and long term stability. Our measurements show that storing the LS in ISO tanks does not result in degradation of its optical properties.