Abstract.
The STEREO experiment measures the electron antineutrino spectrum emitted in a research reactor using the inverse beta decay reaction on H nuclei in a gadolinium loaded liquid scintillator. The detection is based on a signal coincidence of a prompt positron and a delayed neutron capture event. The simulated response of the neutron capture on gadolinium is crucial for the comparison with data, in particular in the case of the detection efficiency. Among all stable isotopes, 155Gd and 157Gd have the highest cross sections for thermal neutron capture. The excited nuclei after the neutron capture emit gamma rays with a total energy of about 8MeV. The complex level schemes of 156Gd and 158Gd are a challenge for the modeling and prediction of the deexcitation spectrum, especially for compact detectors where gamma rays can escape the active volume. With a new description of the Gd (n,\( \gamma\)) cascades obtained using the FIFRELIN code, the agreement between simulation and measurements with a neutron calibration source was significantly improved in the STEREO experiment. A database of ten millions of deexcitation cascades for each isotope has been generated and is now available for the user.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
N. Allemandou et al., JINST 13, P07009 (2018)
H. Almazán et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 161801 (2018)
C. Buck, B. Gramlich, M. Lindner, C. Roca, S. Schoppmann, JINST 14, P01027 (2019)
I. Alekseev et al., Phys. Lett. B7 87, 56 (2018)
D. Adey, Improved Measurement of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux at Daya Bay, arXiv:1808.10836 (2018)
K. Hagiwara et al., Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2019, 023D01 (2019)
O. Litaize et al., Nucl. Data Sheets 118, 216 (2014)
O. Litaize et al., Eur. Phys. J. A 51, 1 (2015)
O. Litaize et al., EPJ Web of Conferences 169, 00012 (2018)
F. Bečvář, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 417, 434 (1998)
D. Regnier et al., Comput. Phys. Commun. 201, 19 (2016)
D. Brown, M. Chadwick, R. Capote et al., Nucl. Data Sheets 148, 1 (2018)
K.K. Shibata et al., J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 48, 1 (2011)
S.F. Mughabghab, Atlas of Neutron Resonances: Resonance Parameters and Thermal Cross Sections $Z=1-100$ (Elsevier Science, 2006)
R. Capote et al., Nucl. Data Sheets 110, 3107 (2009)
H.A. Bethe, Phys. Rev. 50, 332 (1936)
A. Gilbert, A.G.W. Cameron, Can. J. Phys. 43, 1446 (1965)
E. Porter, C.R.G. Thomas, Phys. Rev. 104, 483 (1956)
T. Kibedi et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 589, 202 (2008)
J. Kopecky, M. Uhl, Phys. Rev. C 41, 1941 (1990)
D.M. Brink, Nucl. Phys. 4, 215 (1957)
S. Agostinelli et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 506, 250 (2003)
J. Scherzinger et al., Appl. Radiat. Isot. 98, 74 (2015)
Acknowledgments
Open Access funding provided by Max Planck Society.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by C. Broggini
Data Availability Statement
This manuscript has associated data in a data repository. [Authors’ comment: We make available ten millions of deexcitation cascades for each isotope at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2653786, since other running and upcoming projects might profit from these data as well.]
Publisher’s Note
The EPJ Publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
About this article
Cite this article
Almazán, H., Bernard, L., Blanchet, A. et al. Improved STEREO simulation with a new gamma ray spectrum of excited gadolinium isotopes using FIFRELIN. Eur. Phys. J. A 55, 183 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2019-12886-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2019-12886-y