Can decay heat measurements tell us something about the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly?*

Measurements of the decay energy released as function of time following a neutron induced fission burst on ²³⁵U, ²³⁹Pu and ²⁴¹Pu were performed in the 1970s with the purpose of quantifying possible Loss Of Coolant Accident scenarios.   This decay energy, known in technical parlance as decay heat, is mainly composed of two terms, the energy from the electrons produced together with antineutrinos in the beta-minus decay of the neutron-rich fission products, and the energy from the gamma-rays, produced in the decay of excited nuclear levels.  In this work we study if this body of decay heat data can be used to assess the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly, that is the approximately 5%  electron antineutrinos deficit produced by nuclear reactors at short distance, first deduced by Mention and collaborators in 2011, and observed by the major reactor antineutrino experiments near nuclear power plants operating in the last 10 years.