Sterile Neutrino Search at the NEOS Experiment

Abstract

An experiment to search for light sterile neutrinos is conducted at a reactor with a thermal power of 2.8 GW located at the Hanbit nuclear power complex. The search is done with a detector consisting of a ton of Gd-loaded liquid scintillator in a tendon gallery approximately 24 m from the reactor core. The measured antineutrino event rate is 1976 per day with a signal to background ratio of about 22. The shape of the antineutrino energy spectrum obtained from the eight-month data-taking period is compared with a hypothesis of oscillations due to active-sterile antineutrino mixing. No strong evidence of 3 + 1 neutrino oscillation is found. An excess around the 5 MeV prompt energy range is observed as seen in existing longer-baseline experiments. The mixing parameter sin(2)2 theta(14) is limited up to less than 0.1 for Delta m(41)(2) ranging from 0.2 to 2.3 eV(2) with a 90% confidence level. © 2017 American Physical Society