Darmstadt 2016 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 35: Astroparticle Physics I

HK 35.6: Talk

Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 15:45–16:00, S1/01 A02

Investigation of the reactor neutrino anomaly with STEREO — •Felix Kandzia — Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble

Nuclear reactors are strong sources of electron antineutrinos in the energy range from 1 to 10 MeV, originating from the beta decays of neutron rich fission fragments. Reactors therefore provide a good opportunity to study neutrino oscillations. Recently calculated corrections to the common model of emitted neutrino spectra prompted a re-evaluation of several experiments, resulting in a deficit of about 6% between the observed and predicted antineutrino flux at short distances. This so called 'reactor neutrino anomaly' has a statistical significance of 2.7 sigma. One possible explanation of the deficit could be a fourth neutrino state, which would only participate in the oscillations but not in weak interactions and is therefore called 'sterile'.

This hypothesis has triggered a number of experiments worldwide, searching for sterile neutrinos. One of which is STEREO, which will be presented in this talk. STEREO will investigate neutrino oscillations at a distance of only 10 m from the core of the research reactor of the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France. The very compact core is suitable for the investigation of the expected short oscillation length of the light sterile neutrinos. The sensitive volume of STEREO is 2000 l of a Gd doped liquid scintillator, detecting antineutrinos via inverse beta decay. The detector is currently under construction and is expected to deliver first results in 2016.