Uncertainty analysis of fission fraction for reactor antineutrino experiments

Reactor simulation is an important source of uncertainties for a reactor neutrino experiment. Therefore, how to evaluate the antineutrino flux uncertainty results from reactor simulation is an important question. In this study, a method of the antineutrino flux uncertainty result from reactor simulation was proposed by considering the correlation coefficient. In order to use this method in the Daya Bay antineutrino experiment, the open source code DRAGON was improved and used for obtaining the fission fraction and correlation coefficient. The average fission fraction between DRAGON and SCIENCE code was compared and the difference was less than 5% for all the four isotopes. The uncertainty of fission fraction was evaluated by comparing simulation atomic density of four main isotopes with Takahama-3 experiment measurement. After that, the uncertainty of the antineutrino flux results from reactor simulation was evaluated as 0.6% per core for Daya Bay antineutrino experiment.