Journal Article

Analysis of reactor burnup simulation uncertainties for antineutrino spectrum prediction

Mari, S. M., Stanco, L., Garfagnini, A., Ferraro, F., Tuvé, C., Loffredo, S., Re, A. C., Cammi, A., Chiesa, D., Gavrikov, A., Ranucci, G., Giammarchi, M. G., Dusini, S., Bruno, R., Votano, L., Sisti, M., Torri, M. D. C., Giudice, N., Paoloni, A., Clementi, C., Grassi, M., Caccianiga, B., Landini, C., Beretta, M., Cerrone, V., Martini, A., Orestano, D., Lombardo, C., Jelmini, B., Previtali, E., Miramonti, L., Venettacci, C., Budano, A., Triossi, A., Guizzetti, R. M., Lippi, I., Barresi, A., Ortica, F., Brigatti, A., Stanescu Farilla, E., Aiello, S., Serafini, A., Romani, A., Antonelli, V., Sava, G., Strati, V., Bergnoli, A., Redchuck, M., Verde, G., Petrucci, F., Loi, L., Nastasi, M., Ricci, B., Saggese, P., Guardone, N., Basilico, D., Fabbri, A., Percalli, E., Brugnera, R., Felici, G., Montuschi, M., Borghesi, M., Andronico, G., Sirignano, C., Lombardi, P., Caruso, R., Mantovani, F.

2024

Overview

Nuclear reactors are a source of electron antineutrinos due to the presence of unstable fission products that undergo β - decay. They will be exploited by the JUNO experiment to determine the neutrino mass ordering and to get very precise measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters. This requires the reactor antineutrino spectrum to be characterized as precisely as possible both through high-resolution measurements, as foreseen by the TAO experiment, and detailed simulation models. In this paper, we present a benchmark analysis utilizing Serpent Monte Carlo simulations in comparison with real pressurized water reactor spent fuel data. Our objective is to study the accuracy of fission fraction predictions as a function of different reactor simulation approximations. Then, using the BetaShape software, we construct reactor antineutrino spectrum using the summation method, thereby assessing the influence of simulation uncertainties on it.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Antineutrinos / Applied and Technical Physics / Atomic / Complex Systems / Condensed Matter Physics / Design / Fission products / Mathematical and Computational Physics / Molecular / Monte Carlo simulation / Neutrinos / Neutrons / Nuclear energy / Nuclear fission / Nuclear fuel burnup / Nuclear power plants / Nuclear reactors / Observatories / Optical and Plasma Physics / Ordinary differential equations / Parameter uncertainty / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Pressurized water reactors / Reactors / Regular Article / Sensors / Simulation / Simulation models / Spent nuclear fuels / Theoretical / Uncertainty analysis