Braidwood baseline

From: Ed Blucher <blucher@hep.uchicago.edu>
Date: Tue Aug 17 2004 - 10:32:57 CDT

Dear Braidwood Collaborators:

Below are some notes on the baseline design we discussed at the meeting.
For the R&D proposal, we will use this as a reference point for the
discussion. The various sections of the proposal will discuss work needed
to establish whether or not the baseline design is optimal.

Each group should send Ed, Mike, and Noel statements of proposed work
during the next year and any request for funding. Funding might include
purchases for R&D, and some support for high school students
and undergrads. Please send preliminary information on these requests as
soon as possible, so we can begin to get a picture of the full budget for
the proposal. During the next few days, we will also send out details
of information required for all senior personel who will be listed on
the proposal (bios, current support, etc.).

For those of you who were not at the end of the meeting, Jon and Ed's
discussion with the Braidwood management went very well. Exelon agreed to
support both the bore hole work and the full project if we are able to get
funding. They would like to have the bore hole work done in September,
before a reactor shutdown in October. We're now working with the Exelon
general counsel to draft an MOU between Chicago and Exelon for the bore
hole work, as well as a detailed letter of support for the project that we
can attach to our R&D proposal.

We will arrange a phone meeting to discuss the proposal at the end of
August.

                                              Ed and Mike

                                 Baseline

1) Two near and two far detectors with a 7m outer radius (~90 ton Gd
region). The detector distances will be approximately 200m and 1500m.

2) Two zone detector
     The proposal will need to describe argument for 2 zone detector
     and describe R&D (mainly simulation) to establish that this approach
     is acceptable (rather than 3-zone design of ChoozII.
     We should also provide ome information about three zones:
     extra cost, reduced fiducial volume, syst. errors
2) Moveable Detectors
      - Baseline sensitivities will not use reduced syst. from moving
      - Moving will provide a cross check and possibly better sensitivity
4) Veto system. Approximately 1m of concrete surrounded by active veto
     counters. There was extensive discussion about the need for passive
     shielding in addition to an active veto below the detector. We both
     feel that an active veto below the detector with extended coverage
     for the active+passive system on the sides should be sufficient -- we
     should discuss this more at our next meeting.
5) We need to define the baseline scintillator. So far, we've assumed
     0.1% Gd, but we should decide whether we want to consider a higher
     concentration for the baseline. In any case, this will be an issue
     to address in R&D.
Received on Tue Aug 17 10:32:58 2004

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