High Flux Electron Antineutrino Sources Based on Li-8 Isotope. The Possibility to Construct the Compact Variant.

The strong demand to isotopes for creation of the artificial MeV-energy electron antineutrino sources can be satisfied by Li which is characterized by well defined and hard spectrum. The source can be produced at ( , )-activation of the starting Li isotope. The availability and presence of large mass of Li allow to construct as -source on the base of nuclear reactors (in steady state and dynamical mode of operation) as in tandem scheme of proton accelerators with heavy metal target. The accelerator variant is optimized in efficiency of Li generation and in dimension that is exclusively important for investigation of oscillation in problem of sterile neutrino search in case of eV scale. The analysis of Li creation in the lithium blanket-converter allowed to decrease it outer size down to 70 cm strongly decreasing the escape of neutrons from the source construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]