The Energy Spectrum of Reactor Antineutrinos

Abstract

Measurements of electron antineutrinos emitted by nuclear reactors have been central to our understanding the nature of these particles. These successes have been clouded by disagreements between existing models and measurements of the rate and energy spectra of ν e from reactors. Direct calculation of energy spectra based on nuclear fission and decay databases, despite significant uncertainties, suggests a possible explanation for the observed spectral shape. Here I discuss the details of these comparisons of models with measurements, their implications, and possible future measurements with potential to clarify these outstanding issues.

Prospects of light sterile neutrino oscillation and CP violation searches at the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Facility

“…However, recent realizations that large and unaccounted-for systematic uncertainties are associated with reactor neutrino flux predictions (see, e.g. [9][10][11]) dictate that the reactor anomaly cannot yet be interpreted decisively as a light sterile neutrino oscillation signature; such interpretations should await either improved reactor antineutrino flux modelling or dedicated searches for light sterile neutrino oscillations at reactor short baselines which are sensitive to distortions in reconstructed event spectra that are L=E dependent. Such searches are now under way with a number of experiments [12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”