Eur. Phys. J. C 27, 331-374 (2003)
DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s2002-01127-9

Search for neutrino oscillations on a long base-line at the CHOOZ nuclear power station

M. Apollonio¹, A. Baldini², C. Bemporad², E. Caffau¹, F. Cei², Y. Déclais³, H. de Kerret⁴, B. Dieterle⁵, A. Etenko⁶, L. Foresti², J. George⁵, G. Giannini¹, M. Grassi², Y. Kozlov⁶, W. Kropp⁷, D. Kryn⁴, M. Laiman³, C. E. Lane⁸, B. Lefièvre⁴, I. Machulin⁶, A. Martemyanov⁶, V. Martemyanov⁶, L. Mikaelyan⁶, D. Nicolò², M. Obolensky⁴, R. Pazzi², G. Pieri², L. Price⁷, S. Riley⁷, R. Reeder⁵, A. Sabelnikov⁶, G. Santin¹, M. Skorokhvatov⁶, H. Sobel⁷, J. Steele⁸, R. Steinberg⁸, S. Sukhotin⁶, S. Tomshaw⁸, D. Veron⁷ and V. Vyrodov<sup>7

1</sup>  INFN, Sezione di Trieste and University of Trieste, 34021 Trieste, Italy
²  INFN, Sezione di Pisa and University of Pisa, 56010 S. Piero a Grado Pisa, Italy
³  LAPP-IN2P3-CNRS Annecy, 74941 Annecy-le-Vieux, France
⁴  PCC-IN2P3-CNRS Collège de France, 75231 Paris, France
⁵  University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
⁶  Russian Research Center, Kurchatov Institute, Moscow 123183, Russia
⁷  University of California, Irvine, CA 92717, USA
⁸  Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

(Received: 20 September 2002 / Revised version: 18 November 2002 Published online: 3 March 2003 )

Abstract
This final article about the CHOOZ experiment presents a complete description of the source and detector, the calibration methods and stability checks, the event reconstruction procedures and the Monte Carlo simulation. The data analysis, systematic effects and the methods used to reach our conclusions are fully discussed. Some new remarks are presented on the deduction of the confidence limits and on the correct treatment of systematic errors.

© Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2003