Intensive electron antineutrino source with well defined hard spectrum on the base of nuclear reactor and 8-lithium transfer. The promising experiment for sterile neutrinos search

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel, well-defined, high-flux electron antineutrino source based on lithium activation for short-baseline experiments, aiming to improve sterile neutrino searches with high precision.

Contribution

It introduces a new antineutrino source concept using lithium activation and transport, enabling high count rates and low errors for sterile neutrino investigations.

Findings

Simulated detection of sterile neutrino models (3+1 and 3+2)

High count rate (>100 per day) with low error (<1%)

Potential to explore new parameter space for sterile neutrinos

Abstract

The new concept of antineutrino source for future short-baseline experiments is discussed. The source ensures: 1) well defined hard antineutrino flux; 2) the rate of counts more than ~(1E+2 - 1E+3) per day in the detector volume about cubic meter; 3) low level of count errors - < 1%. The proposed source is based on (n,gamma)-activation of 7Li near the reactor active zone and transport of the fast beta-decaying 8Li isotope toward a remote neutrino detector and back in the closed loop. The proposed experiment allows to detect (electron antineutrino, p)-interaction with high precision and directed to search of sterile neutrinos with squared-mass difference between sterile and active neutrinos ~1 eV2. The results of simulation for (3+1) and (3+2) sterile neutrino models indicate the space regions for search of electron antineutrino-disappearance outside the spectrum errors.