Program - Brookhaven National Laboratory

update in the ongoing effort to apply the fission yield information extracted from these same databases
to the calculation of a typical PWR antineutrino spectrum weighted by the production and depletion of
the various fission isotopes. We will further present an outline of the theory used to model beta decay,
specifically highlighting the important parameters we must obtain from the nuclear databases. Finally, we
will present the problems we have encountered in using nuclear databases and provide our solution to the
issues if one was obtained. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy
by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and DOE-NP ANS &
T Grant LLNL SCW1234.
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The Nucifer Experiment
L. Bouvet, P. Contrepois, G. Coulloux, M. Cribier, V. Fischer, J. Gaffiot, R. Granelli, T. Lasserre, L.
Latron, A. Letourneau, D. Lhuillier, A. Marchix, G. Mention, N. Pedrol-Margaley, Y. Piret, A. Porta, G.
Prono, L. Scola, P. Starzynski, M. Vivier
CEA, Centre de Saclay, IRFU, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
S. Bouvier, V. M. Bui, H. Carduner, A.S. Cucoanes, M. Fallot, L. Giot, F. Gomez, G. Guilloux, J.
Martino, A. Porta, G. Pronost, C. Renard, L.M. Rigalleau, D. Roy, F. Yermia
Laboratoire Subatech, Ecole des Mines, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44307 Nantes Cedex 3, France
C. Varignon
CEA, Centre de Bruyères-le-Chatel, DAM/DAN/Service de Physique Nucléaire, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Ch. Buck, M. Lindner
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Coupled with an accurate reactor simulation, the detection of reactor antineutrinos could allow the survey
of the isotopic composition of the core, given for instance a declared reactor power history. These features
may be of interest for electricity companies running reactor cores, but also attracted the attention of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which asked to its member states a sensitivity study about the
antineutrino probe. The IAEA is the UNO agency responsible for the application of the non-proliferation
treaty (NPT). The recalculation of antineutrino energy spectra presented in Ref.[1] led to a generic shift
in normalization of the reactor antineutrino flux reference w.r.t. 80’s and 90’s neutrino experiments. In
consequence, these measurements are not compatible with the non-oscillation hypothesis previously assumed,
and, as suggested in Ref.[2], could be explained by an oscillation of the electron-antineutrinos into
a sterile flavour. Focused on these two physics goals, the Nucifer detector is currently taking data at
CEA-OSIRIS research reactor. The particularities of this site (compactness of the reactor core, very short
distance source-detector of only 7m) have the potential to improve the sensitivity of the experiment to a
test of the sterile neutrino oscillation hypothesis once backgrounds will be carefully understood. Presently,
the ongoing analyses are considering the main sources of background for the antineutrino detection.
Corresponding author: Andi S. Cucoanes
[1] Th. A. Mueller et al., Phys. Rev. C 83, 054615 (2011) [2] G. Mention et al., Phys. Rev. D 83, 073006
(2011)
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Contribution of Recently Measured Nuclear Data to Reactor Antineutrino Energy Spectra
Predictions
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