Exploring Current Constraints on Antineutrino Production by ${}^{241}$Pu and Paths Towards the Precision Reactor Flux Era

Abstract

By performing global fits to inverse beta decay (IBD) yield measurements from existing neutrino experiments based at highly ${}^{235}$U enriched reactor cores and conventional low-enriched cores, we explore current direct bounds on neutrino production by the sub-dominant fission isotope ${}^{241}$Pu. For this nuclide, we determine an IBD yield of ${\sigma }_{241}$ = 8.16 $\pm$ 3.47 cm${}^2$/fission, a value (135 $\pm$ 58)% that of current beta conversion models. This constraint is shown to derive from the non-linear relationship between burn-in of ${}^{241}$Pu and ${}^{239}$Pu in conventional reactor fuel. By considering new hypothetical neutrino measurements at high-enriched, low-enriched, mixed-oxide, and fast reactor facilities, we investigate the feasible limits of future knowledge of IBD yields for ${}^{235}$U, ${}^{238}$U, ${}^{239}$Pu, ${}^{241}$Pu, and ${}^{240}$Pu. We find that the first direct measurement of the ${}^{240}$Pu IBD yield can be performed at plutonium-burning fast reactors, while a suite of correlated measurements at multiple reactor types can achieve precision in direct ${}^{238}$U, ${}^{239}$Pu, and ${}^{241}$Pu yield knowledge that meets or exceeds that of current theoretical predictions.

13 page, 6 figures

References in corpus (14)

• Observation of electron-antineutrino disappearance at Daya Bay
• The Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly
• Sterile neutrino search at NEOS Experiment
• Improved measurements of the neutrino mixing angle ${\theta }_{13}$ with the Double Chooz detector
• Updated Summation Model: An Improved Agreement with the Daya Bay Antineutrino Fluxes
• Improved Measurement of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum at Daya Bay
• Search for a Light Sterile Neutrino at Daya Bay
• Antineutrino monitoring for the Iranian heavy water reactor
• Reactor Fuel Fraction Information on the Antineutrino Anomaly
• Observation of the Isotopic Evolution of Pressurized Water Reactor Fuel Using an Antineutrino Detector
• Diagnosing the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly with Global Antineutrino Flux Data
• Precise Determination of the U-235 Reactor Antineutrino Cross Section per Fission
• Prospects for Improved Understanding of Isotopic Reactor Antineutrino Fluxes
• Active-sterile neutrino mixing constraint using reactor antineutrinos with the ISMRAN set-up