Abstract
The precision reactor oscillation and spectrum experiment, PROSPECT, has made world-leading measurements of reactor antineutrinos at short baselines. In its first phase, conducted at the high flux isotope reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, PROSPECT produced some of the strongest limits on eV-scale sterile neutrinos, made a precision measurement of the reactor antineutrino spectrum from 235U, and demonstrated the observation of reactor antineutrinos in an aboveground detector with good energy resolution and well-controlled backgrounds. The PROSPECT collaboration is now preparing an upgraded detector, PROSPECT-II, to probe yet unexplored parameter space for sterile neutrinos and contribute to a full resolution of the reactor antineutrino anomaly, a longstanding puzzle in neutrino physics. By pressing forward on the world's most precise measurement of the 235U antineutrino spectrum and measuring the absolute flux of antineutrinos from 235U, PROSPECT-II will sharpen a tool with potential value for basic neutrino science, nuclear data validation, and nuclear security applications. Following a two-year deployment at HFIR, an additional PROSPECT-II deployment at a low enriched uranium reactor could make complementary measurements of the neutrino yield from other fission isotopes. PROSPECT-II provides a unique opportunity to continue the study of reactor antineutrinos at short baselines, taking advantage of demonstrated elements of the original PROSPECT design and close access to a highly enriched uranium reactor core.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 070501 |
| Journal | Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2022 |
Funding
The PROSPECT experiment is supported by the following sources: US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics under Award No. DE-SC0016357 and DE-SC0017660 to Yale University, under Award No. DE-SC0017815 to Drexel University, under Award No. DE-SC0008347 to Illinois Institute of Technology, under Award No. DE-SC0016060 to Temple University, under award No. DE-SC0010504 to University of Hawaii, under Contract No. DE-SC0012704 to Brookhaven National Laboratory, and under Work Proposal Number SCW1504 to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and by Oak Ridge National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. Additional funding for the experiment was provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation under Award No. #2016-117 to Yale University. J.G. is supported through the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program and A.C. performed work under appointment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation International Saf 6 guards Fellowship Program sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of International Nuclear Safeguards (NA-241). This work was also supported by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery program under grant #RGPIN418579, and Province of Ontario. We further acknowledge support from Yale University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, Temple University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory LDRD program, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We gratefully acknowledge the support and hospitality of the High Flux Isotope Reactor and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Keywords
- neutrino oscillations
- reactor neutrinos
- sterile neutrinos