AIT / WATCHMAN: Year One

先进仪器试验台(AIT)是一个新设施，将设在博尔比地下实验室，旨在探索用于核不扩散和粒子物理目的的新技术。AIT的第一阶段是水切伦科夫反中微子监测器(Watchman)。建造守望者的资金主要来自美国国家核安全局(NNSA)。英国的参与是我们在原子武器机构(AWE)、STFC-Boulby实验室以及谢菲尔德大学、爱丁堡大学和利物浦大学的工业合作伙伴之间的合作伙伴关系。Watchman探测器是一个技术演示，它将尝试从数十公里的对峙距离对核反应堆进行第一次监测。这种监测的机制是反中微子探测。核反应都会产生大量的反中微子，这是无法屏蔽的。Watchman探测器结合了数十年前的水切伦科夫中微子探测器技术和加载Gd的新技术。在探测器中加入Gd使其对反中微子相互作用中产生的中子敏感，但对低能中微子相互作用不敏感。因此，正电子和中子的符合信号可以用来标记反中微子。如果成功，由Watchman开创的技术可以用来搜索秘密核反应堆，作为不扩散和减少核威胁的手段。AIT还包括新探测材料和技术的研究和开发的重要组成部分。为此，AIT将研究快速光传感器，如大面积皮秒光电探测器(LAPPD)，以及新型探测器材料，如水基液体闪烁体。这些可用于该项目的未来阶段，以扩大反应堆的探测范围，以及实现粒子物理目标，如地球中微子研究和搜索无中微子双β衰变。

The Advanced Instrumentation Testbed (AIT) is a new facility, to be sited in the Boulby Underground Laboratory, that aims to explore new technologies for the purposes of nuclear non-proliferation and particle physics. The first phase of AIT is the WATer CHerenkov Monitor for Anti-Neutrinos (WATCHMAN). WATCHMAN construction is primarily funded through the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). UK involvement is a partnership between our industrial partners in the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), the STFC-Boulby laboratory, and the Universities of Sheffield, Edinburgh, and Liverpool.The WATCHMAN detector is a technology demonstrator, which will attempt the first monitoring of nuclear reactors from a standoff distance of tens of kilometres. The mechanism for this monitoring is anti-neutrino detection. Nuclear reactions all produce a large flux of anti-neutrinos, which cannot be shielded. The WATCHMAN detector combines the decades-old technology of water Cherenkov neutrino detectors with the new technique of gadolinium loading. Adding gadolinium to the detector makes it sensitive to the neutron that is produced in an anti-neutrino interaction, but not a low-energy neutrino interaction. As such, the coincident signature of positron plus neutron can be used to tag anti-neutrinos.If successful, the techniques pioneered by WATCHMAN could be used to search for clandestine nuclear reactors as a means of non-proliferation and nuclear threat reduction.The AIT also includes a significant component of research and development into new detection materials and technologies. For this purpose, AIT will be investigating fast photosensors such as the Large Area Picosecond Photo-Detector (LAPPD), and new detector materials, such as water-based liquid scintillator. These can be used in future phases of the project to enhance the reactor detection range, as well as to enable particle physics goals such as geoneutrino studies and searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay.