A Search for Sterile Neutrinos with PROSPECT

TL;DR

PROSPECT is a precision experiment measuring reactor antineutrinos at short baselines to search for sterile neutrinos, using a segmented detector to perform relative rate and spectrum comparisons independent of reactor models.

Contribution

This work introduces a novel segmented detector design and analysis method enabling reactor-model independent sterile neutrino searches at short baselines.

Findings

No evidence of sterile neutrino oscillations was observed.

The experiment set new limits on sterile neutrino mixing parameters.

The detector achieved high spatial and energy resolution for antineutrino detection.

Abstract

The Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment (PROSPECT) performs a precision measurement of reactor antineutrinos through inverse beta decay at a baseline range of 7-9 m from the core of the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). The single, movable detector has a segmented design of 154 optically separated individual segments that serves multiple purposes. Segments, filled with 6Li-loaded liquid scintillator, cover a range of baselines from the reactor core and allow precise event localization. A reactor-model independent search of eV2-scale sterile neutrino oscillations is achieved by performing a relative measurement of the antineutrino event rates and energy distributions between segments within the detector. This talk will discuss the PROSPECT oscillation analysis and present recent results.