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Interpreting Reactor Antineutrino Anomalies with STEREO data

The STEREO collaboration Almazán, H. ; Bernard, L. ; Blanchet, A. ; et al.
Nature 613 (2023) 257-261, 2023.
Inspire Record 2165649 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.132368

Anomalies in past neutrino measurements have led to the discovery that these particles have non-zero mass and oscillate between their three flavors when they propagate. In the 2010's, similar anomalies observed in the antineutrino spectra emitted by nuclear reactors have triggered the hypothesis of the existence of a supplementary neutrino state that would be sterile i.e. not interacting via the weak interaction. The STEREO experiment was designed to study this scientific case that would potentially extend the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Here we present a complete study based on our full set of data with significantly improved sensitivity. Installed at the ILL (Institut Laue Langevin) research reactor, STEREO has accurately measured the antineutrino energy spectrum associated to the fission of 235U. This measurement confirms the anomalies whereas, thanks to the segmentation of the STEREO detector and its very short mean distance to the core (10~m), the same data reject the hypothesis of a light sterile neutrino. Such a direct measurement of the antineutrino energy spectrum suggests instead that biases in the nuclear experimental data used for the predictions are at the origin of the anomalies. Our result supports the neutrino content of the Standard Model and establishes a new reference for the 235U antineutrino energy spectrum. We anticipate that this result will allow to progress towards finer tests of the fundamental properties of neutrinos but also to benchmark models and nuclear data of interest for reactor physics and for observations of astrophysical or geo-neutrinos.

17 data tables

12B prediction used for the control of the energy scale. The three most intense beta decay branches of 12B have been taken into account, covering 99.94% of the total decay rate. The corresponding spectra are given in bins of 50 keV, normalized to their respective branching ratio. The [no rad. corr] notation stands for the fact that we didn't include the radiative corrections in our nominal simulation, as all radiated photons should be absorbed in the STEREO target volume. However the full effect of these corrections is included in the uncertainty of the predicted spectrum. It can be deduced from the comparison with the full calculation of the beta branches given here as well.

STEREO IBD Spectrum for phase-II and phase-III. The spectra are given in nu/day and normalized to reactor power in cm2/fission/MeV with 22 250keV-wide measured-energy bins, ranging from 1.625MeV (lower edge of lowest bin) to 7.125 MeV (upper edge of highest bin). The normalized rates (cm2/fission/MeV) are split between U5 and non-U5 components (Aluminium and Off-Equilibrium corrections).

STEREO Global Covariance Matrix for phase-II and phase-III. The matrix is given as a 44x44 matrix, with 44 bins for phase-II (bins 1-22) and phase-III (bins 23-44) corresponding to the prompt spectra with 22 250-keV bins, ranging from 1.625 to 7.125 MeV; it is expressed in (cm2/fission/MeV)².

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