Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Experimental Parameters for a Reactor Antineutrino Experiment at Very Short Baselines

Published

Author(s)

Hans P. Mumm

Abstract

Reactor antineutrinos are used to study neutrino oscillation, search for signatures of non-standard neutrino interactions, and to monitor reactor operation for safeguard applications. The flux and energy spectrum of reactor antineutrinos can be predicted from the decays of the nuclear fission products. A comparison of recent reactor calculations with past measurements at baselines of 10- 100 m suggests a 5.7 % deficit. Precision measurements of reactor antineutrinos at very short baselines ~(1-10 m) can be used to probe this anomaly and search for possible oscillations into sterile neutrino species. This paper studies the experimental requirements for a new reactor antineutrino measurement at very short baselines and calculates the sensitivity of various scenarios. We conclude that an experiment at a typical research reactor provides 5$\sigma$ discovery potential for the favored oscillation parameter space with 3 years of data collection.
Citation
Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology)
Volume
87

Keywords

Short baseline neutrino oscillation, sterile neutrinos, neutrino oscillation

Citation

Mumm, H. (2013), Experimental Parameters for a Reactor Antineutrino Experiment at Very Short Baselines, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology), [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=913270 (Accessed March 28, 2024)
Created April 23, 2013, Updated February 19, 2017