Speaker
Description
The Boulby Underground Technology Testbed for Observing Neutrinos (BUTTON-30) is a technology demonstrator installed in the Boulby Underground Laboratory (BUL) in the north-east of England. Situated at a depth of 1070 m in a polyhalite mine, BUL provides an ideal low-background environment for studying neutrinos and searching for dark matter. BUTTON-30 will study the performance of novel hybrid fill media, such as Water-based Liquid Scintillator (WbLS) and gadolinium (Gd)-loaded media. The use of these novel media has the potential to be transformative for neutrino detection. The optical detector system consists of ninety-six 10-inch Hamamatsu R7081-100 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) with low-radioactivity glass. To allow operation in WbLs and other novel fill media, the PMTs are encapsulated in custom-built watertight acrylic housings. One of the modules is being tested underwater at the surface level within a mini-tank setup in Edinburgh.
Here, we report the design and assembly of the optical modules, leading up to their installation at Boulby, and the characterisation of one of the modules at the mini-tank setup in Edinburgh.