The PROSPECT and STEREO collaborations present a combined measurement of the pure ^{235}U antineutrino spectrum, without site specific corrections or detector-dependent effects. The spectral ...measurements of the two highest precision experiments at research reactors are found to be compatible with χ^{2}/ndf=24.1/21, allowing a joint unfolding of the prompt energy measurements into antineutrino energy. This νover ¯_{e} energy spectrum is provided to the community, and an excess of events relative to the Huber model is found in the 5-6 MeV region. When a Gaussian bump is fitted to the excess, the data-model χ^{2} value is improved, corresponding to a 2.4σ significance.
This Letter reports one of the most precise measurements to date of the antineutrino spectrum from a purely ^{235}U-fueled reactor, made with the final dataset from the PROSPECT-I detector at the ...High Flux Isotope Reactor. By extracting information from previously unused detector segments, this analysis effectively doubles the statistics of the previous PROSPECT measurement. The reconstructed energy spectrum is unfolded into antineutrino energy and compared with both the Huber-Mueller model and a spectrum from a commercial reactor burning multiple fuel isotopes. A local excess over the model is observed in the 5-7 MeV energy region. Comparison of the PROSPECT results with those from commercial reactors provides new constraints on the origin of this excess, disfavoring at 2.0 and 3.7 standard deviations the hypotheses that antineutrinos from ^{235}U are solely responsible and noncontributors to the excess observed at commercial reactors, respectively.
Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy (CRES) is a technique for precision measurement of the energies of charged particles, which is being developed by the Project 8 Collaboration to measure the ...neutrino mass using tritium beta-decay spectroscopy. Project 8 seeks to use the CRES technique to measure the neutrino mass with a sensitivity of 40~meV, requiring a large supply of tritium atoms stored in a multi-cubic meter detector volume. Antenna arrays are one potential technology compatible with an experiment of this scale, but the capability of an antenna-based CRES experiment to measure the neutrino mass depends on the efficiency of the signal detection algorithms. In this paper, we develop efficiency models for three signal detection algorithms and compare them using simulations from a prototype antenna-based CRES experiment as a case-study. The algorithms include a power threshold, a matched filter template bank, and a neural network based machine learning approach, which are analyzed in terms of their average detection efficiency and relative computational cost. It is found that significant improvements in detection efficiency and, therefore, neutrino mass sensitivity are achievable, with only a moderate increase in computation cost, by utilizing either the matched filter or machine learning approach in place of a power threshold, which is the baseline signal detection algorithm used in previous CRES experiments by Project 8.
This Letter reports one of the most precise measurements to date of the antineutrino spectrum from a purely U235-fueled reactor, made with the final dataset from the PROSPECT-I detector at the High ...Flux Isotope Reactor. By extracting information from previously unused detector segments, this analysis effectively doubles the statistics of the previous PROSPECT measurement. The reconstructed energy spectrum is unfolded into antineutrino energy and compared with both the Huber-Mueller model and a spectrum from a commercial reactor burning multiple fuel isotopes. A local excess over the model is observed in the 5MeV to 7MeV energy region. Comparison of the PROSPECT results with those from commercial reactors provides new constraints on the origin of this excess, disfavoring at 2.2 and 3.2 standard deviations the hypotheses that antineutrinos from U235 are solely responsible and non-contributors to the excess observed at commercial reactors respectively.
This paper presents an energy calibration scheme for an upgraded reactor antineutrino detector for the Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment (PROSPECT). The PROSPECT collaboration is ...preparing an upgraded detector, PROSPECT-II (P-II), to advance capabilities for the investigation of fundamental neutrino physics, fission processes and associated reactor neutrino flux, and nuclear security applications. P-II will expand the statistical power of the original PROSPECT (P-I) dataset by at least an order of magnitude. The new design builds upon previous P-I design and focuses on improving the detector robustness and long-term stability to enable multi-year operation at one or more sites. The new design optimizes the fiducial volume by elimination of dead space previously occupied by internal calibration channels, which in turn necessitates the external deployment. In this paper, we describe a calibration strategy for P-II. The expected performance of externally deployed calibration sources is evaluated using P-I data and a well-benchmarked simulation package by varying detector segmentation configurations in the analysis. The proposed external calibration scheme delivers a compatible energy scale model and achieves comparable performance with the inclusion of an additional AmBe neutron source, in comparison to the previous internal arrangement. Most importantly, the estimated uncertainty contribution from the external energy scale calibration model meets the precision requirements of the P-II experiment.
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 \(^{235}\)U, 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 \(^{235}\)U antineutrino spectrum and measuring the absolute flux of antineutrinos from \(^{235}\)U, 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.
The PROSPECT experiment has substantially addressed the original 'Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly' by performing a high-resolution spectrum measurement from an enriched compact reactor core and a ...reactor model-independent sterile neutrino oscillation search based on the unique spectral distortions the existence of eV\(^2\)-scale sterile neutrinos would impart. But as the field has evolved, the current short-baseline (SBL) landscape supports many complex phenomenological interpretations, establishing a need for complementary experimental approaches to resolve the situation. While the global suite of SBL reactor experiments, including PROSPECT, have probed much of the sterile neutrino parameter space, there remains a large region above 1 eV\(^2\) that remains unaddressed. Recent results from BEST confirm the Gallium Anomaly, increasing its significance to \(\sim 5\sigma\), with sterile neutrinos providing a possible explanation of this anomaly. Separately, the MicroBooNE exclusion of electron-like signatures causing the MiniBooNE low-energy excess does not eliminate the possibility of sterile neutrinos as an explanation. Focusing specifically on the future use of reactors as a neutrino source for beyond-the-standard-model physics and applications, higher-precision spectral measurements still have a role to play. These recent results have created a confusing landscape which requires new data to disentangle the seemingly contradictory measurements. To directly probe \(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) disappearance from high \(\Delta m^2\) sterile neutrinos, the PROSPECT collaboration proposes to build an upgraded and improved detector, PROSPECT-II. It features an evolutionary detector design which can be constructed and deployed within one year and have impactful physics with as little as one calendar year of data.
We present a detailed report on sterile neutrino oscillation and U-235 antineutrino energy spectrum measurement results from the PROSPECT experiment at the highly enriched High Flux Isotope Reactor ...(HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In 96 calendar days of data taken at an average baseline distance of 7.9 m from the center of the 85 MW HFIR core, the PROSPECT detector has observed more than 50,000 interactions of antineutrinos produced in beta decays of U-235 fission products. New limits on the oscillation of antineutrinos to light sterile neutrinos have been set by comparing the detected energy spectra of ten reactor-detector baselines between 6.7 and 9.2 meters. Measured differences in energy spectra between baselines show no statistically significant indication of antineutrinos to sterile neutrino oscillation and disfavor the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly best-fit point at the 2.5\(\sigma\) confidence level. The reported U-235 antineutrino energy spectrum measurement shows excellent agreement with energy spectrum models generated via conversion of the measured U-235 beta spectrum, with a \(\chi^2\)/DOF of 31/31. PROSPECT is able to disfavor at 2.4\(\sigma\) confidence level the hypothesis that U-235 antineutrinos are solely responsible for spectrum discrepancies between model and data obtained at commercial reactor cores. A data-model deviation in PROSPECT similar to that observed by commercial core experiments is preferred with respect to no observed deviation, at a 2.2\(\sigma\) confidence level.
Reactor neutrino experiments have seen major improvements in precision in recent years. With the experimental uncertainties becoming lower than those from theory, carefully considering all sources of ...\(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) is important when making theoretical predictions. One source of \(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) that is often neglected arises from the irradiation of the nonfuel materials in reactors. The \(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) rates and energies from these sources vary widely based on the reactor type, configuration, and sampling stage during the reactor cycle and have to be carefully considered for each experiment independently. In this article, we present a formalism for selecting the possible \(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) sources arising from the neutron captures on reactor and target materials. We apply this formalism to the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the \(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) source for the the Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum Measurement (PROSPECT) experiment. Overall, we observe that the nonfuel \(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) contributions from HFIR to PROSPECT amount to 1\% above the inverse beta decay threshold with a maximum contribution of 9\% in the 1.8--2.0~MeV range. Nonfuel contributions can be particularly high for research reactors like HFIR because of the choice of structural and reflector material in addition to the intentional irradiation of target material for isotope production. We show that typical commercial pressurized water reactors fueled with low-enriched uranium will have significantly smaller nonfuel \(\overline{\nu}_{e}\) contribution.
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