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The aim of this work is to study the impact of the inclusion of the recently measured β decay properties of the 102,104,105,106,107Tc, 105Mo, and 101Nb nuclei in the calculation of the antineutrino (anti-ν) energy spectra arising after the fissions of the four main fissile isotopes 235,238U, and 239,241Pu in PWRs. These β feeding probabilities, measured using the Total Absorption Technique (TAS) at the JYFL facility of Jyväskylä, have been found to play a major role in the &#947 component of the decay heat for 239Pu in the 4-3000 s range. Following the fission product summation method, the calculation was performed using the MCNP Utility Reactor Evolution code (MURE) coupled to the experimental spectra built from β decay properties of the fission products taken from evaluated databases. These latest TAS data are found to have a significant effect on the Pu isotope energy spectra and on the spectrum of 238U showing the importance of their measurement for a better assessment of the reactor anti-ν energy spectrum, as well as importance for fundamental neutrino physics experiments and neutrino applied physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Letter, we study the impact of the inclusion of the recently measured beta decay properties of the 102;104;105;106;107Tc, 105Mo and101Nb nuclei in updated calculation of the antineutrino energy spectra of the four fissible isotopes 235,238U and 239,241Pu. These actinides are the main contributors to the fission processes in pressurized water reactors. The beta feeding probabilities of the above-mentioned Tc, Mo, and Nb isotopes have been found to play a major role in the γ component of the decay heat of 239Pu, solving a large part of the γ discrepancy in the 4-3000 s range. They have been measured by using the total absorption technique, insensitive to the pandemonium effect. The calculations are performed by using the information available nowadays in the nuclear databases, summing all the contributions of the beta decay branches of the fission products. Our results provide a new prediction of the antineutrino energy spectra of 235U, 239,241Pu, and, in particular, 238U for which no measurement has been published yet. We conclude that new total absorption technique measurements are mandatory to improve the reliability of the predicted spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise predictions of the antineutrino spectra emitted by nuclear reactors is a key ingredient in measurements of reactor neutrino oscillations as well as in recent applications to the surveillance of power plants in the context of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. We report new calculations including the latest information from nuclear databases and a detailed error budget. The first part of this work is the so-called ab initio approach where the total antineutrino spectrum is built from the sum of all β branches of all fission products predicted by an evolution code. Systematic effects and missing information in nuclear databases lead to final relative uncertainties in the 10-20% range. A prediction of the antineutrino spectrum associated with the fission of 238U is given based on this ab initio method. For the dominant isotopes we developed a more accurate approach combining information from nuclear databases and reference electron spectra associated with the fission of 235U, 239Pu, and 241Pu, measured at Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in the 1980s. We show how the anchor point of the measured total β spectra can be used to suppress the uncertainty in nuclear databases while taking advantage of all the information they contain. We provide new reference antineutrino spectra for 235U, 239Pu, and 241Pu isotopes in the 2-8 MeV range. While the shapes of the spectra and their uncertainties are comparable to those of the previous analysis of the ILL data, the normalization is shifted by about +3% on average. In the perspective of the reanalysis of past experiments and direct use of these results by upcoming oscillation experiments, we discuss the various sources of errors and their correlations as well as the corrections induced by off-equilibrium effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]