Effects of new 238U fission yields data on reactor antineutrino spectra
Abstract
The reactor antineutrino anomaly is a decade-long puzzle, identified when improved calculations led to a ~ 5% overall shortfall in the antineutrino flux, as well as an excess of antineutrinos at 5 MeV - colloquially known as 'the bump' - in all short-baseline experiments. It has recently been speculated by A.C. Hayes and collaborators that 'the bump' could be due to deficient knowledge of the 238U antineutrino spectrum. Fission yields (FYs) are, along with decay data, the key quantity needed to predict reactor antineutrino spectra, but the last evaluation of 238U dates back to the 1990's. We started from new experimental data, measured with innovative experimental techniques such as inverse kinematics, and we corrected and constrained them using fission models and historical high-quality measurements. We present here several 238U FY distributions and their effects on reactor antineutrino spectra.
Work sponsored by the Office of NP, Office of Science of the U.S. DOE under Contract No. DE-AC02- 98CH10886.- Publication:
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APS Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020APS..DNP.EG008M