18–21 Sept 2023
The Guildhall York
Europe/London timezone

Progress towards understanding the source of the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly

19 Sept 2023, 16:40
20m
The Guildhall York

The Guildhall York

St Martins Courtyard, Coney St, York YO1 9QL

Speaker

Alejandro Sonzogni (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Description

We have reviewed the nuclear data used in the normalization of the electron spectra measured at the Institut Laue Langevin in the 1980s, concluding that they are very close to currently recommended values, except for the neutron capture cross section on 207Pb, which is 9% higher. This would lead to an artificially larger 235U electron and antineutrino spectra, consistent with the Daya Bay Collaboration results, as well as those reported recently by Kopeikin and collaborators. Additionally, following an analysis that employs the latest nuclear databases of the electron data measured at ORNL in the 1970s by Dickens and collaborators, we have deduced new electron and antineutrino spectra for 235U and 239,241Pu under equilibrium conditions, which are consistent with the above mentioned normalization issue, and which can better reproduce the IBD antineutrino spectrum near its maximum, thus providing a coherent explanation for the origin of the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly.

Abstract title Progress towards understanding the source of the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly

Primary authors

Alejandro Sonzogni (Brookhaven National Laboratory) Dr Andrea Mattera (Brookhaven National Laboratory) Dr Elizabeth McCutchan (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Presentation materials