Measurement of the U-235 antineutrino energy spectrum with PROSPECT
ORAL
Abstract
PROSPECT is a short-baseline experiment observing reactor antineutrinos from the 85MW highly-enriched uranium High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Positioned 7.9m from HFIR, the segmented liquid scintillator detector was designed to search for eV-scale sterile neutrino oscillations and make a precision measurement of the U-235 antineutrino energy spectrum. Using 40 days of reactor-on data, PROSPECT has detected >31,000 antineutrinos, resulting in the world-leading measurement of the U-235 spectrum. PROSPECT disfavors U-235 as the sole isotope responsible for the spectral discrepancy observed by nuclear power reactor experiments at ~3σ.
*This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and the Heising- Simons Foundation. Addition support is provided by Illinois Institute of Technology, LLNL, NIST, ORNL, Temple University, and Yale University. We gratefully acknowledge the support and hospitality of the High Flux Isotope Reactor, managed by UT-Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Presenters
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Benjamin Foust
- Yale Universtiy