Project Details
The Precision Oscillation and Reactor Spectrum Experiment (PROSPECT) is a reactor neutrino experiment operating at very short baselines to make precision flux and energy spectral measurements of nuclear reactor antineutrinos. While these antineutrinos have an incredibly weak interaction with regular matter, the goal of PROSPECT is to search for a signature of these particles changing or “oscillating” into a “sterile” type of neutrino which has no interaction with normal matter other than by gravity. The existence of these hypothetical sterile neutrinos would have tremendous implications for the Standard Model of Particle Physics as well as for the large-scale structure of the Universe. In its first phase, conducted at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, PROSPECT-I 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.
Contact: Alfredo Galindo-Uribarri (uribarri@ornl.gov)
