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Final assessment of radioactive impurities in the JUNO detector
Authors:
Thomas Adam,
Fengpeng An,
Costas Andreopoulos,
Giuseppe Andronico,
Nikolay Anfimov,
Vito Antonelli,
Tatiana Antoshkina,
João Pedro Athayde Marcondes de André,
Didier Auguste,
Nikita Balashov,
Andrea Barresi,
Davide Basilico,
Eric Baussan,
Marco Beretta,
Antonio Bergnoli,
Nikita Bessonov,
Daniel Bick,
Lukas Bieger,
Svetlana Biktemerova,
Thilo Birkenfeld,
Simon Blyth,
Manuel Böhles,
Anastasia Bolshakova,
Mathieu Bongrand,
Matteo Borghesi
, et al. (549 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) collaboration has completed the construction of the 20,000-ton liquid scintillator detector and the associated muon veto detector system. To meet the physics objectives, the materials used in the detector must exhibit low radioactive contamination. The single-event rate in the fiducial volume (R $<$ 17.2 m) of the scintillator is required to be…
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The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) collaboration has completed the construction of the 20,000-ton liquid scintillator detector and the associated muon veto detector system. To meet the physics objectives, the materials used in the detector must exhibit low radioactive contamination. The single-event rate in the fiducial volume (R $<$ 17.2 m) of the scintillator is required to be approximately 7 Hz for energies above 0.7 MeV, resulting in an accidental coincidence background of about 1 event per day for reactor neutrino physics analyses. Since the beginning of the construction phase, we have screened the natural radioactivity content of thousands of materials, to select those that meet the design background budget. The radioactive impurity concentrations of the materials ultimately used in the JUNO detector are summarized in this paper. The construction of the entire detector and the subsequent filling of the liquid scintillator were completed in August 2025. From the initial data, the total count rate of natural radioactivity within the detector's fiducial volume has met the requirements and is sufficient to support the reactor antineutrino analysis.
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Submitted 19 July, 2026;
originally announced July 2026.
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Embedded underwater front-end electronics for the 3-inch photomultipliers in the JUNO experiment
Authors:
Cédric Cerna,
Miao He,
Xiaoshan Jiang,
Juan Pedro Ochoa-Ricoux,
Frédéric Perrot,
Angel Abusleme,
Thomas Adam,
Fengpeng An,
Costas Andreopoulos,
Giuseppe Andronico,
João Pedro Athayde Marcondes de André,
Nikolay Anfimov,
Vito Antonelli,
Tatiana Antoshkina,
Didier Auguste,
Nikita Balashov,
Andrea Barresi,
Davide Basilico,
Eric Baussan,
Marco Beretta,
Antonio Bergnoli,
Nikita Bessonov,
Daniel Bick,
Lukas Bieger,
Svetlana Biktemerova
, et al. (576 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a 20-kton liquid scintillator-based, low-radioactivity, multi-purpose neutrino detector located 693 meters (1800 m.w.e.) underground in the Guangdong province, China. To detect scintillation light produced in the target, the detector is equipped with 17,612 20-inch photomultipliers (PMTs), forming the Large PMT system (LPMT). In addition, 25,…
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The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a 20-kton liquid scintillator-based, low-radioactivity, multi-purpose neutrino detector located 693 meters (1800 m.w.e.) underground in the Guangdong province, China. To detect scintillation light produced in the target, the detector is equipped with 17,612 20-inch photomultipliers (PMTs), forming the Large PMT system (LPMT). In addition, 25,600 3-inch photomultipliers (the Small Photomultiplier System or SPMT) are deployed in the gaps between the LPMTs.
This paper presents the design and performance of the underwater front-end electronics developed for the SPMT system. It details the individual electronics boards and their key components, the inter-board interfaces, the system-level design, and the firmware architecture that supports data acquisition and control. It also outlines mechanical and thermal integration, board validation procedures, and system performance metrics. The readout chain includes digitization of 128 PMT channels per unit, synchronized time-stamping, charge measurement, event packaging, and bandwidth management. Comprehensive validation confirms the system's readiness to meet JUNO's stringent physics goals. The underwater electronics achieve noise levels as low as 0.04 photoelectrons with minimal crosstalk (below 0.4%) and a bandwidth of 57 MB/s, ensuring reliable single photo-electron detection and operation under high-rate conditions. The SPMT system has now been fully integrated and installed in JUNO. Its commissioning and physics performance will be reported in a future publication.
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Submitted 1 June, 2026; v1 submitted 28 April, 2026;
originally announced April 2026.
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Initial performance results of the JUNO detector
Authors:
Angel Abusleme,
Thomas Adam,
Kai Adamowicz,
David Adey,
Shakeel Ahmad,
Rizwan Ahmed,
Timo Ahola,
Sebastiano Aiello,
Fengpeng An,
Guangpeng An,
Costas Andreopoulos,
Giuseppe Andronico,
João Pedro Athayde Marcondes de André,
Nikolay Anfimov,
Vito Antonelli,
Tatiana Antoshkina,
Burin Asavapibhop,
Didier Auguste,
Margherita Buizza Avanzini,
Andrej Babic,
Jingzhi Bai,
Weidong Bai,
Nikita Balashov,
Roberto Barbera,
Andrea Barresi
, et al. (1114 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) started physics data taking on 26 August 2025. JUNO consists of a 20-kton liquid scintillator central detector, surrounded by a 35 kton water pool serving as a Cherenkov veto, and almost 1000 m$^2$ of plastic scintillator veto on top. The detector is located in a shallow underground laboratory with an overburden of 1800 m.w.e. This paper present…
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The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) started physics data taking on 26 August 2025. JUNO consists of a 20-kton liquid scintillator central detector, surrounded by a 35 kton water pool serving as a Cherenkov veto, and almost 1000 m$^2$ of plastic scintillator veto on top. The detector is located in a shallow underground laboratory with an overburden of 1800 m.w.e. This paper presents the performance results of the detector, extensively studied during the commissioning of the water phase, the subsequent liquid scintillator filling phase, and the first physics runs. The liquid scintillator achieved an attenuation length of 20.6 m at 430 nm, while the high coverage PMT system and scintillator together yielded about 1785 photoelectrons per MeV of energy deposit at the detector centre, measured using the 2.223 MeV $γ$ from neutron captures on hydrogen with an Am-C calibration source. The reconstructed energy resolution is 3.4% for two 0.511 MeV $γ$ at the detector centre and 2.9% for the 0.93 MeV quenched Po-214 alpha decays from natural radioactive sources. The energy nonlinearity is calibrated to better than 1%. Intrinsic contaminations of U-238 and Th-232 in the liquid scintillator are below 10$^{-16}$ g/g, assuming secular equilibrium. The water Cherenkov detector achieves a muon detection efficiency better than 99.9% for muons traversing the liquid scintillator volume. During the initial science runs, the data acquisition duty cycle exceeded 97.8%, demonstrating the excellent stability and readiness of JUNO for high-precision neutrino physics.
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Submitted 18 November, 2025;
originally announced November 2025.