Abstract
The aim of this work is to study the impact of the inclusion of the recently measured β decay properties of the 102,104,105,106,107Tc, 105Mo, and 101Nb nuclei in the calculation of the antineutrino (anti-ν) energy spectra arising after the fissions of the four main fissile isotopes 235,238U, and 239,241Pu in PWRs. These β feeding probabilities, measured using the Total Absorption Technique (TAS) at the JYFL facility of Jyväskylä, have been found to play a major role in the γ component of the decay heat for 239Pu in the 4-3000 s range. Following the fission product summation method, the calculation was performed using the MCNP Utility Reactor Evolution code (MURE) coupled to the experimental spectra built from β decay properties of the fission products taken from evaluated databases. These latest TAS data are found to have a significant effect on the Pu isotope energy spectra and on the spectrum of 238U showing the importance of their measurement for a better assessment of the reactor anti-ν energy spectrum, as well as importance for fundamental neutrino physics experiments and neutrino applied physics.
Highlights
We have presented a contribution of nuclear physics research to particle physics with the study of neutrino fundamental and applied physics using nuclear reactors
Nuclear structure and data play an important role in the computation of reactor antineutrino energy spectra, at the origin of the “reactor anomaly”
Summation method spectra relying on the beta decay data of the fission products could constitute an alternative to the converted antineutrino spectra relying on the unique measurements of integral beta spectra made at the ILL research reactor
Summary
A huge effort was devoted to reactor simulations [5] and to revisit the existing methods to compute the antineutrino energy spectrum emitted by the plant, as a precise prediction is mandatory to compare with the far detector measurements These new calculations [6, 7], based on the conversion of the very precise integral beta spectra measured by Schreckenbach et al at the ILL reactor [8], have led to a reinterpretation of the results of the short baseline reactor neutrino experiments [9], evidencing a deficit of the measured reactor antineutrino flux w.r.t. the prediction, @3. The second section will be devoted to the reactor anomaly and the brief presentation of projects of neutrino experiments at research reactors
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