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The OPERA experiment in the CERN to Gran Sasso neutrino beam

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R Acquafredda1, T Adam2, N Agafonova3, P Alvarez Sanchez4, M Ambrosio1, A Anokhina5, S Aoki6, A Ariga7, T Ariga8, L Arrabito9, C Aufranc9, D Autiero9, A Badertscher10, A Bagulya11, E Baussan2, A Bergnoli12, F Bersani Greggio13, A Bertolin12, M Besnier14, D Biaré14, D Bick15, S Blin16, K Borer7, J Boucrot16, D Boutigny14, V Boyarkin3, C Bozza17, T Brugière9, R Brugnera18,12, G Brunetti19,20, S Buontempo1, J E Campagne16, B Carlus9, E Carrara18,20, A Cazes21, L Chaussard9, M Chernyavsky11, V Chiarella21, N Chon-Sen2, A Chukanov1, R Ciesielski12, L Consiglio19,20, M Cozzi19, G D'Amato17, F Dal Corso12, N D'Ambrosio22, J Damet14, C de La Taille16, G De Lellis23,1, Y Déclais9, T Descombes9, M De Serio24, F Di Capua1, D Di Ferdinando20, A Di Giovanni25, N Di Marco25, C Di Troia21, N Dick2, S Dmitrievski26, A Dominjon9, M Dracos2, D Duchesneau14, B Dulach21, S Dusini12, J Ebert15, I Efthymiopoulos4, O Egorov27, K Elsener4, R Enikeev3, A Ereditato7, L S Esposito22, C Fanin12, J Favier14, G Felici21, T Ferber15, R Fini24, L Fournier14, A Franceschi21, D Frekers28, T Fukuda8, C Fukushima29, V I Galkin5, V A Galkin30, R Gallet14, S Gardien9, A Garfagnini18,12, G Gaudiot2, G Giacomelli19,20, M Giorgini19,20, C Girerd9, C Goellnitz15, T Goeltzenlichter2, J Goldberg31, D Golubkov27, Y Gornushkin26, J-N Grapton2, G Grella17, F Grianti13, E Gschwendtner4, C Guerin9, M Guler32, C Gustavino22, J-L Guyonnet2, C Hagner15, T Hamane14, T Hara6, M Hauger7, M Hess7, M Hierholzer33, K Hoshino8, M Ieva24, M Incurvati21, K Jakovcic34, J Janicsko Csathy7, B Janutta15, C Jollet2, F Juget7, M Kazuyama8, S H Kim35, N Khovansky26, M Kimura29, B Klicek34, J Knuesel7, K Kodama36, D Kolev37, M Komatsu8, U Kose32, A Krasnoperov26, I Kreslo7, Z Krumstein26, V V Kutsenov3, V A Kuznetsov3, I Laktineh9, M Lavy14, C Lazzaro10, T D Le2, T Le Flour14, J Lenkeit15, J Lewis4, S Lieunard14, A Ljubicic34, A Longhin18, G Lutter7, A Malgin3, K Manai9, G Mandrioli20, A Marotta1, J Marteau9, G Martin-Chassard16, V Matveev3, N Mauri19,20, M Meddahi4, F Meisel7, A Meregaglia2, A Meschini22, M Messina7, P Migliozzi1, P Monacelli25, I Monteiro14, F Moreau14, K Morishima8, U Moser7, M T Muciaccia38,24, P Mugnier14, N Naganawa8, M Nakamura8, T Nakano8, T Napolitano21, V Nikitina5, K Niwa8, Y Nonoyama8, A Nozdrin26, S Ogawa29, A Olchevski26, D Orlandi22, G Orlova11, V Osedlo5, D Ossetski30, M Paniccia21, A Paoloni21, B D Park8, I G Park35, A Pastore38,24, L Patrizii20, L Pellegrino21, E Pennacchio9, H Pessard14, V Pilipenko28, C Pistillo7, N Polukhina11, M Pozzato19,20, K Pretzl7, P Publichenko5, F Pupilli25, L Raux16, J P Repellin16, R Rescigno17, D Rizhikov, T Roganova5, G Romano17, G Rosa39, I Rostovtseva27, A Rubbia10, A Russo23,1, V Ryasny3, O Ryazhskaya3, A Sadovski26, C Sanelli21, O Sato8, Y Sato40, V Saveliev30, G Sazhina5, A Schembri39, W Schmidt Parzefall15, H Schroeder33, H U Schütz7, J Schuler2, L Scotto Lavina1, J Serrano4, H Shibuya29, S Simone38,24, M Sioli19,20, C Sirignano17, G Sirri20, J S Song35, M Spinetti21, L Stanco18, N Starkov11, M Stipcevic34, T Strauss10, P Strolin23,1, V Sugonyaev18, S Takahashi8, V Talochkin3, M Tenti19,20, V Tereschenko26, F Terranova21, I Tezuka40, V Tioukov1, P Tolun32, V Tsarev11, R Tsenov37, S Tufanli32, U Ugolino1, N Ushida36, G Van Beek41, V Verguilov37, T Viant10, P Vilain41, M Vladimirov11, L Votano21, J L Vuilleumier7, T Waelchli7, M Weber7, G Wilquet41, B Wonsak15, J Wurtz2, V Yakushev3, C S Yoon35, Y Zaitsev27, A Zghiche14 and R Zimmermann15

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The OPERA neutrino oscillation experiment has been designed to prove the appearance of ντ in a nearly pure νμ beam (CNGS) produced at CERN and detected in the underground Hall C of the Gran Sasso Laboratory, 730 km away from the source. In OPERA, τ leptons resulting from the interaction of ντ are produced in target units called bricks made of nuclear emulsion films interleaved with lead plates. The OPERA target contains 150000 of such bricks, for a total mass of 1.25 kton, arranged into walls interleaved with plastic scintillator strips. The detector is split into two identical supermodules, each supermodule containing a target section followed by a magnetic spectrometer for momentum and charge measurement of penetrating particles. Real time information from the scintillators and the spectrometers provide the identification of the bricks where the neutrino interactions occurred. The candidate bricks are extracted from the walls and, after X-ray marking and an exposure to cosmic rays for alignment, their emulsion films are developed and sent to the emulsion scanning laboratories to perform the accurate scan of the event. In this paper, we review the design and construction of the detector and of its related infrastructures, and report on some technical performances of the various components. The construction of the detector started in 2003 and it was completed in Summer 2008. The experiment is presently in the data taking phase. The whole sequence of operations has proven to be successful, from triggering to brick selection, development, scanning and event analysis.

Keywords

Hybrid detectors

Particle tracking detectors

Spectrometers

Large detector systems for particle and astroparticle physics

PACS

13.15.+g Neutrino interactions

96.50.Vg Energetic particles

14.60.Lm Ordinary neutrinos (nue, numu, nutau)

96.60.Vg Particle emission, solar wind

29.40.Mc Scintillation detectors

96.50.sb Composition, energy spectra and interactions

Subjects

Accelerators, beams and electromagnetism

Nuclear physics

Instrumentation and measurement

Particle physics and field theory

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 04 (April 2009)

Received 18 February 2009, accepted for publication 5 April 2009

Published 29 April 2009



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