Status of the STEREO experiment : search for a light sterile neutrino at ILL
Abstract
The search for a light sterile neutrino started to be a popular topic in neutrino
physics, since the observation of the ”gallium anomaly” and ”reactor anomaly” in which a deficit
of neutrinos was observed relative to the prediction. Such anomalies could be explained by short
distance oscillations towards a sterile state with ∆m2 ∼ 1 eV2. In a highly competitive context,
several projects were started to search for a light sterile neutrino. This paper will focus on
the Stereo experiment for which a detector has been designed to observe the electron antineutrino energy spectrum distortion from 3 to 8 MeV due to such a new L/E oscillation, and
should therefore confirm or reject the light sterile neutrino hypothesis. Electron anti-neutrinos
produced by the compact reactor core of the Institut Laue-Langevin will be detected in a 6-cell
segmented volume of Gd-loaded liquid scintillator through the inverse β-decay process. The
Stereo detector was completed in November 2016 and was commissioned right away, Stereo
is currently taking data. In this paper we will present the final design of the detector and the
first results of the commissioning.