Final Search for Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillations with the PROSPECT-I Detector at HFIR

Published

June 14, 2024

Author(s)

Hans Pieter Mumm, Manoa Andriamirado, Baha Balantekin, Christopher Bass, Ohana Benevides Rodrigues, Ethan Bernard, Nathaniel Bowden, Christopher Bryan, Rachel Carr, Timothy Classen, Andrew Conant, Geoffrey Deichert, Michelle Dolinski, Anna Erickson, Alfredo Galindo-Uribarri, Sasmit Gokhale, Chris Grant, Sunej Hans, Adam Hansell, Karsten Heeger, Blaine Heffron, David Jaffe, Shashank Jayakumar, John Koblanski, Paige Kunkle, Charles Lane, Bryce Littlejohn, Adrian Lozano Sanchez, Xiaobin (Jeremy) Lu, Jelena Maricic, Michael Mendenhall, Andrew Meyer, Radovan Milincic, Paul Mueller, Russell Neilson, Xin Qian, Christian Roca, Richard Rosero, Pranava Teja Surukuchi, Felicia Sutanto, Diego Venegas-Vargas, Pierce Weatherly, James Wilhelmi, Minfang Yeh, Chao Zhang, Xianyi Zhang

Abstract

The PROSPECT experiment is designed to perform precise searches for antineutrino disappearance at short distances (7 – 9 m) from compact nuclear reactor cores. This Letter reports results from a final neutrino oscil- lation analysis performed using the complete data sample from the PROSPECT-I detector operated at the High Flux Isotope Reactor in 2018. The analysis uses a multi-period selection of inverse beta decay neutrino inter- actions with reduced backgrounds and enhanced statistical power to set limits on electron-flavor disappearance caused by mixing with sterile neutrinos with 0.2 – 20 eV2 mass splittings. Inverse beta decay positron energy spectra from six different reactor-detector distance ranges are found to be statistically consistent with one an- other, as would be expected in the absence of sterile neutrino oscillations. The data excludes at 95% confidence level the existence of sterile neutrinos in regions above 4 eV2 previously unexplored by terrestrial experiments, including regions suggested by the recently strengthened Gallium Anomaly. The best-fit point of the Neutrino-4 reactor experiment's claimed observation of short-baseline oscillation is ruled out at more than five standard deviations.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

Reactor neutrino, sterile neutrino, neutrino oscillation

Citation

Mumm, H. , Andriamirado, M. , Balantekin, B. , Bass, C. , Benevides Rodrigues, O. , Bernard, E. , Bowden, N. , Bryan, C. , Carr, R. , Classen, T. , Conant, A. , Deichert, G. , Dolinski, M. , Erickson, A. , Galindo-Uribarri, A. , Gokhale, S. , Grant, C. , Hans, S. , Hansell, A. , Heeger, K. , Heffron, B. , Jaffe, D. , Jayakumar, S. , Koblanski, J. , Kunkle, P. , Lane, C. , Littlejohn, B. , Lozano Sanchez, A. , Lu, X. , Maricic, J. , Mendenhall, M. , Meyer, A. , Milincic, R. , Mueller, P. , Neilson, R. , Qian, X. , Roca, C. , Rosero, R. , Surukuchi, P. , Sutanto, F. , Venegas-Vargas, D. , Weatherly, P. , Wilhelmi, J. , Yeh, M. , Zhang, C. and Zhang, X. (2024), Final Search for Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillations with the PROSPECT-I Detector at HFIR, Physical Review Letters (Accessed October 10, 2025)