DOI: 10.17182/hepdata.92323.v1/t4
title: "Critical Delta Chi-squared Map" of "Improved Sterile Neutrino Constraints from the STEREO Experiment with 179 Days of Reactor-On Data"

description: The $\Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}$ map accounts for the fact that the $\Delta \chi^2$ values of the oscillation fit do not follow a $\chi^2$ distribution with 2 degrees of freedom. Therefore, the $\Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}$ value for x% C.L. of each point $[\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}), \Delta m^2_{41}]$ in the parameter space, $\Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}(\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}), \Delta m^2_{41})$, is determined from the $\Delta \chi^2$ obtained in pseudo-experiments at that point, such that $\Delta \chi^2 \leq \Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}$, for $x$% of the pseudo-experiments. Applying these $\Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}$ values to the $\Delta \chi^2$ map obtained with the data, $x$% C.L. exclusion contours are obtained. The point $[\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}), \Delta m^2_{41}]$ is excluded by the data at $x$% C.L. if $\Delta \chi^2(\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}), \Delta m^2_{41}) &gt; \Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}(\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}), \Delta m^2_{41})$.

In order to obtain the $\Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}$ map, $10^4$ pseudo-experiments were generated for each point $[\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}), \Delta m^2_{41}]$ in the parameter space, taking into account all statistical and systematic uncertainties. The $\Delta \chi^2$ value of a pseudo-experiment is calculated by subtracting the $\chi^2$ value of the best-fit in the parameter space from the $\chi^2$ value of the fit at the $[\sin^2(2\theta_{ee}), \Delta m^2_{41}]$ used in the generation of the pseudo-dataset, where all nuisance parameters are free within their pull terms.

When combining the exclusion contours with other experimental data, special care should be exercised. The assumption of a standard $\chi^2$ law instead of the provided $\Delta \chi^2_{\text{crit},x}$ values derived from non-standard $\chi^2$ distributions leads to slightly modified contours. In addition, the contours were derived using a raster-scan in several fixed values of $\Delta m_{41}^2$. While this method is particularly suited to derive exclusion contours, it cannot be used to calculate allowed confidence regions for $\Delta m_{41}^2$ and consequently two-dimensional allowed confidence regions. This is because $\Delta \chi^2$ values are not reflecting the likelihood of individual $\Delta m_{41}^2$ values. Thus, a direct comparison of $\Delta \chi^2$ values across different $\Delta m_{41}^2$ values is not possible in a statistically meaningful way. When generating the exclusion contours with the aforementioned procedure, spurious exclusion regions at low values of $\sin^2(2\theta_{ee})$ can be encountered for some values of $\Delta m^2_{41}$. These should be ignored and are owed to the raster-scan procedure used to generate the maps.
description: The STEREO experiment is a very short baseline reactor antineutrino experiment. It is designed to test the hypothesis of light sterile neutrinos being the cause of a deficit of the observed antineutrino interaction rate at short baselines with respect to the predicted rate, known as the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly. The STEREO experiment measures the antineutrino energy spectrum in six identical detector cells covering baselines between 9 and 11 m from the compact core of the ILL research reactor. In this article, results from 179 days of reactor turned on and 235 days of reactor turned off are reported in unprecedented detail. The current results include improvements in the description of the optical model of the detector, the gamma-cascade after neutron captures by gadolinium, the treatment of backgrounds, and the statistical method of the oscillation analysis. Using a direct comparison between antineutrino interaction rates of all cells, independent of any flux prediction, we find the data compatible with the null oscillation hypothesis. The best-fit point of the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly is rejected at more than 99.9% C.L. To allow inclusion of this work into global oscillation analyses and further works, we provide various results of our analysis in digitised form.