Speaker
Prof.
Bryce Littlejohn
(IIT)
Description
PROSPECT, the Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment, has both carried out a sensitive search for sterile neutrino oscillations as a solution the reactor antineutrino anomaly and made the first modern measurement of the 235U reactor antineutrino spectrum. While no signature of sterile neutrinos has thus far been found, viable oscillation parameter space remains and efforts to understand neutrino mass and search for sterile neutrinos or other BSM phenomena continue as central topics in neutrino physics. By performing future measurements at multiple reactor types and baselines short-baseline reactor neutrino experiments can greatly increase sterile neutrino sensitivity; providing powerful probes of electron-type neutrino disappearance over many decades of neutrino mass difference. The complementary high-resolution antineutrino spectrum measurements at multiple core types attainable by inverse beta decay detectors can yield new handles on nuclear processes taking place in a reactor core and on the nuclear data used to describe these processes, as well as providing reference spectra valuable for other detection channels, such as coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. Finally, measurements at US-based reactors provide opportunities for detector technology development relevant to other US neutrino physics community goals. In this talk, we will overview the unique role that existing and future short-baseline reactor neutrino experiments can play in addressing P5 science drivers.
Primary author
Prof.
Bryce Littlejohn
(IIT)
