The ${}^{144}\mathrm{Ce}–{}^{144}\mathrm{Pr}$ electron antineutrino source is one of the most suitable radiochemical sources for experiments searching for the oscillations of active neutrinos to the light sterile state. In the current work the $\beta$ spectra of the ${}^{144}\mathrm{Ce}–{}^{144}\mathrm{Pr}$ source have been measured by two types of $\beta$ spectrometers based on silicon Si(Li) detectors in order to determine the energy spectrum of electron antineutrinos emitted in the $\beta$ decay of ${}^{144}\mathrm{Pr}$ nuclei. The nuclear shape factor of the ground state beta transition in ${}^{144}\mathrm{Pr}-{}^{144}\mathrm{Nd}$ has been obtained with high precision: $C(W)=1+(-0.0301\pm 0.0007)W+(-0.101\pm 0.006)W^{-1}$. The reduced cross section for the inverse beta decay reaction on hydrogen for the ${}^{144}\mathrm{Pr}$ electron antineutrino source has been defined as $(4.7344\pm {0.0006}_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm {0.013}_{\mathrm{syst}})\times {10}^{-44}{\mathrm{cm}}^2{\text{decay}}^{-1}$ that provides sufficient sensitivity to search for a sterile neutrino with a mass of $m_4\sim 1\mathrm{eV}$ and a mixing angle $Si{n}^2(2{\theta }_{14})\sim 0.005$ using the standard disappearance method.

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• Beta decay
• Neutrino oscillations