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Published July 22, 2022 | Published + Accepted Version + Supplemental Material
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First Measurement of High-Energy Reactor Antineutrinos at Daya Bay

An, F. P.
Bai, W. D.
Balantekin, A. B.
Bishai, M.
Blyth, S.
Cao, G. F.
Cao, J.
Chang, J. F.
Chang, Y.
Chen, H. S.
Chen, H. Y.
Chen, S. M.
Chen, Y.
Chen, Y. X.
Cheng, J.
Cheng, Z. K.
Cherwinka, J. J.
Chu, M. C.
Cummings, J. P.
Dalager, O.
Deng, F. S.
Ding, Y. Y.
Diwan, M. V.
Dohnal, T.
Dolzhikov, D.
Dove, J.
Dwyer, D. A.
Gallo, J. P.
Gonchar, M.
Gong, G. H.
Gong, H.
Gu, W. Q.
Guo, J. Y.
Guo, L.
Guo, X. H.
Guo, Y. H.
Guo, Z.
Hackenburg, R. W.
Hans, S.
He, M.
Heeger, K. M.
Heng, Y. K.
Hor, Y. K.
Hsiung, Y. B.
Hu, B. Z.
Hu, J. R. ORCID icon
Hu, T.
Hu, Z. J.
Huang, H. X.
Huang, J. H.
Huang, X. T.
Huang, Y. B.
Huber, P.
Jaffe, D. E.
Jen, K. L.
Ji, X. L.
Ji, X. P.
Johnson, R. A.
Jones, D.
Kang, L.
Kettell, S. H.
Kohn, S.
Kramer, M.
Langford, T. J.
Lee, J.
Lee, J. H. C.
Lei, R. T.
Leitner, R.
Leung, J. K. C.
Li, F.
Li, H. L.
Li, J. J.
Li, Q. J.
Li, R. H.
Li, S.
Li, S. C.
Li, W. D.
Li, X. N.
Li, X. Q.
Li, Y. F.
Li, Z. B.
Liang, H.
Lin, C. J.
Lin, G. L.
Lin, S.
Ling, J. J.
Link, J. M.
Littenberg, L.
Littlejohn, B. R.
Liu, J. C.
Liu, J. L.
Liu, J. X.
Lu, C.
Lu, H. Q.
Luk, K. B.
Ma, B. Z.
Ma, X. B.
Ma, X. Y.
Ma, Y. Q.
Mandujano, R. C.
Marshall, C.
McDonald, K. T.
McKeown, R. D.
Meng, Y.
Napolitano, J.
Naumov, D.
Naumova, E.
Nguyen, T. M. T.
Ochoa-Ricoux, J. P.
Olshevskiy, A.
Pan, H.-R.
Park, J.
Patton, S.
Peng, J. C.
Pun, C. S. J.
Qi, F. Z.
Qi, M.
Qian, X.
Raper, N.
Ren, J.
Morales Reveco, C.
Rosero, R.
Roskovec, B.
Ruan, X. C.
Steiner, H.
Sun, J. L.
Tmej, T.
Treskov, K.
Tse, W.-H.
Tull, C. E.
Viren, B.
Vorobel, V.
Wang, C. H.
Wang, J.
Wang, M.
Wang, N. Y.
Wang, R. G.
Wang, W.
Wang, X.
Wang, Y.
Wang, Y. F.
Wang, Z.
Wang, Z.
Wang, Z. M.
Wei, H. Y.
Wei, L. H.
Wen, L. J.
Whisnant, K.
White, C. G.
Wong, H. L. H.
Worcester, E.
Wu, D. R.
Wu, Q.
Wu, W. J.
Xia, D. M.
Xie, Z. Q.
Xing, Z. Z.
Xu, H. K.
Xu, J. L.
Xu, T.
Xue, T.
Yang, C. G.
Yang, L.
Yang, Y. Z.
Yao, H. F.
Ye, M.
Yeh, M.
Young, B. L.
Yu, H. Z.
Yu, Z. Y. ORCID icon
Yue, B. B.
Zavadskyi, V.
Zeng, S.
Zeng, Y.
Zhan, L.
Zhang, C.
Zhang, F. Y.
Zhang, H. H.
Zhang, J. L.
Zhang, J. W.
Zhang, Q. M.
Zhang, S. Q.
Zhang, X. T.
Zhang, Y. M.
Zhang, Y. X.
Zhang, Y. Y.
Zhang, Z. J.
Zhang, Z. P.
Zhang, Z. Y.
Zhao, J.
Zhao, R. Z.
Zhou, L.
Zhuang, H. L.
Zou, J. H.
Daya Bay Collaboration
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Abstract

This Letter reports the first measurement of high-energy reactor antineutrinos at Daya Bay, with nearly 9000 inverse beta decay candidates in the prompt energy region of 8–12 MeV observed over 1958 days of data collection. A multivariate analysis is used to separate 2500 signal events from background statistically. The hypothesis of no reactor antineutrinos with neutrino energy above 10 MeV is rejected with a significance of 6.2 standard deviations. A 29% antineutrino flux deficit in the prompt energy region of 8–11 MeV is observed compared to a recent model prediction. We provide the unfolded antineutrino spectrum above 7 MeV as a data-based reference for other experiments. This result provides the first direct observation of the production of antineutrinos from several high-Q_β isotopes in commercial reactors.

Additional Information

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3. (Received 17 March 2022; revised 5 June 2022; accepted 28 June 2022; published 18 July 2022) We thank Magali Estienne and Muriel Fallot for their generosity to extend their summation model in Ref. [20] above 10 MeV and their helpful discussions. The Daya Bay experiment is supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the CAS Center for Excellence in Particle Physics, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Guangdong provincial government, the Shenzhen municipal government, the China General Nuclear Power Group, the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports of the Czech Republic, the Charles University Research Centre UNCE, the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, and the National Commission of Scientific and Technological Research of Chile. We acknowledge Yellow River Engineering Consulting Co., Ltd., and China Railway 15th Bureau Group Co., Ltd., for building the underground laboratory. We are grateful for the ongoing cooperation from the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group and China Light and Power Company.

Attached Files

Published - PhysRevLett.129.041801.pdf

Accepted Version - 2203.06686.pdf

Supplemental Material - AntineutrinoEnergySpectrum.txt

Supplemental Material - PromptEnergySpectrum.txt

Supplemental Material - ResponseMatrix.txt

Supplemental Material - WholeAntineutrinoEnergySpectrum.txt

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Additional details

Identifiers Related works Funding Dates
Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023