Version 3
Improved Sterile Neutrino Constraints from the STEREO Experiment with 179 Days of Reactor-On Data

The STEREO collaboration Almazán, H. ; Bernard, L. ; Blanchet, A. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.D 102 (2020) 052002, 2020.
Inspire Record 1770821 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.92323

The STEREO experiment is a very short baseline reactor antineutrino experiment. It is designed to test the hypothesis of light sterile neutrinos being the cause of a deficit of the observed antineutrino interaction rate at short baselines with respect to the predicted rate, known as the reactor antineutrino anomaly. The STEREO experiment measures the antineutrino energy spectrum in six identical detector cells covering baselines between 9 and 11 m from the compact core of the ILL research reactor. In this article, results from 179 days of reactor turned on and 235 days of reactor turned off are reported at a high degree of detail. The current results include improvements in the modelling of detector optical properties and the gamma-cascade after neutron captures by gadolinium, the treatment of backgrounds, and the statistical method of the oscillation analysis. Using a direct comparison between antineutrino spectra of all cells, largely independent of any flux prediction, we find the data compatible with the null oscillation hypothesis. The best-fit point of the reactor antineutrino anomaly is rejected at more than 99.9% C.L.

25 data tables

Data from Figure 30 – Relative comparison between the estimated rates of IBD events $A_{l,i}$ (for cell $l$ and energy bin $i$) and the re-normalised no-oscillation model $\phi_i M_{l,i}(\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}) = 0)$ as a function of reconstructed energy $E_\text{rec}$ after a fit to phase-I+II data. Due to less statistics, the highest energy bin is excluded from the oscillation analysis in phase-I. For technical reasons, its value is set equal to zero in this dataset. A full graphical presentation can be downloaded at "Resources" for reference.

Data from Figure 30 – Relative comparison between the estimated rates of IBD events $A_{l,i}$ (for cell $l$ and energy bin $i$) and the fitted no-oscillation model $M_{l,i}(0, 0, \vec{\alpha})~\phi_i$ as a function of reconstructed energy $E_\text{rec}$ after a fit to phase-I+II data. Due to less statistics, the highest energy bin is excluded from the oscillation analysis in phase-I. For technical reasons, its value is set equal to zero in this dataset. A graphical presentation can be downloaded at "Resources" for reference.

Data from Figure 30 – Relative comparison between the estimated rates of IBD events $A_{l,i}$ (for cell $l$ and energy bin $i$) and the fitted no-oscillation model $M_{l,i}(0, 0, \vec{\alpha})~\phi_i$ as a function of reconstructed energy $E_\text{rec}$ after a fit to phase-I+II data. Due to less statistics, the highest energy bin is excluded from the oscillation analysis in phase-I. For technical reasons, its value is set equal to zero in this dataset. A graphical presentation can be downloaded at "Resources" for reference.

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