Operation and performance of the ICARUS T600 cryogenic plant at Gran Sasso underground Laboratory

ICARUS T600 liquid argon time projection chamber is the first large mass electronic detector of a new generation able to combine the imaging capabilities of the old bubble chambers with an excellent calorimetric energy measurement. After the three months demonstration run on surface in Pavia during 2001, the T600 cryogenic plant was significantly revised, in terms of reliability and safety, in view of its long term operation in an underground environment. The T600 detector was activated in Hall B of the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory during spring 2010, where it was operated without interruption for about three years, taking data exposed to the CERN to Gran Sasso long baseline neutrino beam (CNGS) and cosmic rays. In this paper the T600 cryogenic plant is described in detail together with the commissioning procedures that lead to the successful operation of the detector shortly after the end of the filling with liquid argon. Overall plant performance and stability during the underground run are discussed. Finally, the decommissioning procedures, carried out about six months after the end of the CNGS neutrino beam operation, are reported.