Precise measurement of theta_13 at Daya Bay

Understand

The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment is designed to determine the yet unknown neutrino mixing angle theta_13 by measuring the disappearance of electron antineutrinos from several nuclear reactor cores, using multiple underground detectors at different baselines to minimize systematic errors and to suppress the cosmogenic background.

• The civil construction has begun since October 2007, enabling first commissioning data in 2009, and full data taking will begin in late 2010.
• The planned sensitivity in sin^2 (2theta_13) of better than 0.01 at 90% CL will be achieved in three years of data-taking.
• I will present an overview and current status of the experiment.