Speaker
Description
Aging of the plastic scintillators plays a significant role in the degradation
of detectors performance. Several effects are considered responsible for
this process like mechanical stresses, water penetration and oxidation.
The DANSS detector core consists of 2500 polystyrene based scintillation strips.
The detector is located just below an industrial nuclear reactor
of Kalininskaya NPP. The room housing the detector is air conditioned and
has very low humidity. The temperature of about 20C was sustained at
the detector core. The performance of the scintillator is permanently
monitored with cosmic muons passing through the detector. 6 years of
observation are reported since April 2016 till March 2022. The light yield
degradation about 1% per year is observed.
