Precise predictions of the antineutrino spectra emitted by nuclear reactors is a key ingredient in measurements of reactor neutrino oscillations as well as of the recent applications to the surveillance of power plants in the context of non proliferation of nuclear weapons. We report new calculations including the latest information from nuclear databases and a detailed error budget. The first part of this work is the so-called ab initio approach where the total antineutrino spectrum is built from the sum of all β-branches of all fission products predicted by an evolution code. Systematic effects and missing information in nuclear databases lead to final relative uncertainties in the 10 to 20% range. A prediction of the antineutrino spectrum associated with the fission of 238 U is given based on this ab initio method. For the dominant isotopes 235 U and 239 Pu, we developed a more accurate approach combining information from nuclear databases and reference electron spectra associated with the fission of 235 U, 239 Pu and 241 Pu, measured at ILL in the 80's. We show how the anchor point of the measured total β-spectra can be used to suppress the uncertainty in nuclear databases while taking advantage of all the information they contain. We provide new reference antineutrino spectra for 235 U, 239 Pu and 241 Pu isotopes in the 2-8 MeV range. While the shapes of the spectra and their uncertainties are comparable to that of the previous analysis of the ILL data, the normalization is shifted by about +3% on average. In the perspective of the re-analysis of past experiments and direct use of these results by upcoming oscillation experiments, we discuss the various sources of errors and their correlations as well as the corrections induced by off equilibrium effects.

The Double Chooz Experiment presents an indication of reactor electron antineutrino disappearance consistent with neutrino oscillations. An observed-to-predicted ratio of events of 0.944 ± 0.016 (stat) ± 0.040 (syst) was obtained in 101 days of running at the Chooz Nuclear Power Plant in France, with two 4.25 GW th reactors. The results were obtained from a single 10 m 3 fiducial volume detector located 1050 m from the two reactor cores. The reactor antineutrino flux prediction used the Bugey4 flux measurement after correction for differences in core composition. The deficit can be interpreted as an indication of a non-zero value of the still unmeasured neutrino mixing parameter sin 2 2θ13. Analyzing both the rate of the prompt positrons and their energy spectrum we find sin 2 2θ13= 0.086 ± 0.041 (stat) ±0.030 (syst), or, at 90% CL, 0.017 < sin 2 2θ13 < 0.16. We report first results of a search for a non-zero neutrino oscillation [1] mixing angle, θ 13 , based on reactor antineutrino disappearance. This is the last of the three neutrino oscillation mixing angles [2,3] for which only upper limits [4,5] are available. The size of θ 13 sets the required sensitivity of long-baseline oscillation experiments attempting to measure CP violation in the neutrino sector or the mass hierarchy.In reactor experiments [6,7] addressing the disappearance ofν e , θ 13 determines the survival probability of electron antineutrinos at the "atmospheric" squaredmass difference, ∆m 2 atm . This probability is given by:where L is the distance from reactor to detector in meters and E the energy of the antineutrino in MeV. The full formula can be found in Ref.[1]. Eq. 1 provides a direct way to measure θ 13 since the only additional input is the well measured value of |∆m 2 atm | = (2.32Other running reactor experiments [9,10] are using the same technique.Electron antineutrinos of < 9 MeV are produced by reactors and detected through inverse beta decay (IBD): ν e + p → e + + n. Detectors based on hydrocarbon liquid scintillators provide the free proton targets. The IBD signature is a coincidence of a prompt positron signal followed by a delayed neutron capture. We present here our first results with a detector located ∼ 1050 m from the two 4.25 GW th thermal power reactors of the Chooz Nuclear Power Plant and under a 300 MWE rock overburden. The analysis is based on 101 days of data including 16 days with one reactor off and one day with both reactors off.The antineutrino flux of each reactor depends on its thermal power and, for the four main fissioning isotopes, 235 U, 239 Pu, 238 U, 241 Pu, their fraction of the total fuel content, their energy released per fission, and their fission and capture cross-sections. The fission rates and associated errors were evaluated using two predictive and complementary reactor simulation codes: MURE [17,18] and DRAGON [19]. This allowed a study of the sensitivity to the important reactor parameters (e.g.. thermal power, boron concentration, temperatures and densities). The quality of these simulations...

The Double Chooz experiment has observed 8,249 candidate electron antineutrino events in 227.93 live days with 33.71 GW-ton-years (reactor power × detector mass × livetime) exposure using a 10.3 m 3 fiducial volume detector located at 1050 m from the reactor cores of the Chooz nuclear power plant in France. The expectation in case of θ13= 0 is 8,937 events. The deficit is interpreted as evidence of electron antineutrino disappearance. From a rate plus spectral shape analysis we find sin 2 2θ13 = 0.109 ± 0.030(stat) ± 0.025(syst). The data exclude the no-oscillation hypothesis at 99.8% CL (2.9σ).

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Originally designed as a new nuclear reactor monitoring device, the Nucifer detector has successfully detected its first neutrinos. We provide the second shortest baseline measurement of the reactor neutrino flux. The detection of electron antineutrinos emitted in the decay chains of the fission products, combined with reactor core simulations, provides a new tool to assess both the thermal power and the fissile content of the whole nuclear core and could be used by the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA) to enhance the Safeguards of civil nuclear reactors. Deployed at only 7.2 m away from the compact Osiris research reactor core (70 MW) operating at the Saclay research centre of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), the experiment also exhibits a well-suited configuration to search for a new short baseline oscillation. We report the first results of the Nucifer experiment, describing the performances of the ∼ 0.85 m 3 detector remotely operating at a shallow depth equivalent to ∼ 12 m of water and under intense background radiation conditions. Based on 145 (106) days of data with reactor ON (OFF), leading to the detection of an estimated 40 760 νe, the mean number of detected antineutrinos is 281 ± 7(stat) ± 18(syst) νe/day, in agreement with the prediction 277 ± 23 νe/day. Due to the large background no conclusive results on the existence of light sterile neutrinos could be derived, however. As a first societal application we quantify how antineutrinos could be used for the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement. arXiv:1509.05610v4 [physics.ins-det]

In this paper, we study the impact of the inclusion of the recently measured beta decay properties of the 102;104;105;106;107 Tc, 105 Mo, and 101 Nb nuclei in an updated calculation of the antineutrino energy spectra of the four fissible isotopes 235,238 U, and 239,241 Pu. These actinides are the main contributors to the fission processes in Pressurized Water Reactors. The beta feeding probabilities of the above-mentioned Tc, Mo and Nb isotopes have been found to play a major role in the γ component of the decay heat of 239 Pu, solving a large part of the γ discrepancy in the 4 to 3000 s range. They have been measured using the Total Absorption Technique (TAS), insensitive to the Pandemonium effect. The calculations are performed using the information available nowadays in the nuclear databases, summing all the contributions of the beta decay branches of the fission products. Our results provide a new prediction of the antineutrino energy spectra of 235 U, 239,241 Pu and in particular of 238 U for which no measurement has been published yet. We conclude that new TAS measurements are mandatory to improve the reliability of the predicted spectra.

A new summation method model of the reactor antineutrino energy spectrum is presented. It is updated with the most recent evaluated decay databases and with our Total Absorption Gammaray Spectroscopy measurements performed during the last decade. For the first time the spectral measurements from the Daya Bay experiment are compared with the detected antineutrino energy spectrum computed with the updated summation method without any renormalisation. The results exhibit a better agreement than is obtained with the Huber-Mueller model in the 2 to 5 MeV range, the region which dominates the detected flux. An unexpected systematic trend is found that the detected antineutrino flux computed with the summation model decreases with the inclusion of more Pandemonium free data. The detected flux obtained now lies only 1.9% above that detected in the Daya Bay experiment, a value that may be reduced with forthcoming new Pandemonium free data leaving less and less room to the reactor anomaly. Eventually, the new predictions of individual antineutrino spectra for the 235 U, 239 Pu, 241 Pu and 238 U are used to compute the dependence of the reactor antineutrino spectral shape on the fission fractions.

The spectroscopy of the unstable 8 He and unbound 7 He nuclei is investigated via the p( 8 He,d) transfer reaction with a 15.7A.MeV 8 He beam from the SPIRAL facility. The emitted deuterons were detected by the telescope array MUST. The results are analyzed within the coupled-channels Born approximation framework, and a spectroscopic factor C 2 S = 4.4±1.3 for neutron pickup to the 7 Heg.s is deduced. This value is consistent with a full p3/2 subshell for 8 He. Tentative evidence for the first excited state of 7 He is found at E* = 0.9±0.5 MeV (width Γ = 1.0 ± 0.9 MeV). The second one is observed at a position compatible with previous measurements, E*=2.9±0.1 MeV. Both are in agreement with previous separate measurements. The reproduction of the first excited state below 1 MeV would be a challenge for the most sophisticated nuclear theories.