Reactor Neutrino Spectrum and Flux Measurement

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding of reactor neutrino flux and spectrum, highlighting discrepancies like the flux deficit and energy excess, and discusses experimental status and future outlook.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the discrepancies in reactor neutrino measurements and discusses recent experimental findings and future directions.

Findings

Approximately 6% flux deficit observed

Excess of events between 5-7 MeV in energy spectrum

Current experiments aim to resolve these discrepancies

Abstract

Reactor neutrinos play a substantial role in the study of the fundamental properties of neutrinos. With current and upcoming precision experiments, it is essential more than ever to understand the reactor neutrino flux and spectrum. However, two discrepancies between prediction and measurement are observed. On the one hand, there is a $\sim6\%$ total measured flux deficit, known as the reactor antineutrino anomaly, consistently seen by several experiments at short baselines. On the other hand, there is an observed excess over prediction for $\bar\nu_e$ energies between 5-7 MeV. We discuss current status of the experimental measurements and provide an outlook.