Joint Determination of Reactor Antineutrino Spectra from 235U and 239Pu Fission using the Daya Bay and PROSPECT Experiments

Published

February 22, 2022

Author(s)

Hans Pieter Mumm, Denis E. Bergeron, Mark Tyra, Svetlana Nour, Jerome LaRosa, The PROSPECT Collaboration

Abstract

A joint determination of the reactor antineutrino spectra resulting from the fission of 235U and 239Pu has been carried out by the Daya Bay and PROSPECT collaborations. This letter defines the level of compatibility of 235U spectrum measurements from the two experiments and presents new results from a joint analysis of both data sets. The measurements from both experiments are found to be consistent within uncertainty. The combined analysis improves the precision in direct knowledge of the 235U spectral shape to about 3% and reduces the degeneracy between the dominant 235U and 239Pu isotopes. The antineutrino energy spectrum from 235U fission is jointly unfolded from these two experiments using the Wiener-SVD unfolding method, providing a data-based reference for other reactor antineutrino experiments and theoretical models.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

128

Issue

8

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.081801

Local Download

Keywords

reactor neutrino spectrum, spectrum unfolding

Citation

Mumm, H. , Bergeron, D. , Tyra, M. , Nour, S. , LaRosa, J. and Collaboration, T. (2022), Joint Determination of Reactor Antineutrino Spectra from 235U and 239Pu Fission using the Daya Bay and PROSPECT Experiments, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.081801, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=932276 (Accessed October 1, 2025)