Yale Wright Lab research was well represented at the 31st International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2024), held in Italy from June 16 to 22, 2024. This biennial conference focuses on the status of neutrino physics, its interplay with astronomy and cosmology, and the prospects of these fields. The conference was jointly organized by the University of Milano-Bicocca, the University of Milano, and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN).
The conference featured talks and results from neutrino experiments that involve contributions and leadership from Wright Lab scientists, including CUORE, CUPID, Daya Bay, DUNE (Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment), IceCube, nEXO, Project 8, and PROSPECT. Some highlights are listed below. Please see our neutrinos and fundamental symmetries research page for more information on Wright Lab involvement in these experiments. The conference website https://neutrino2024.org also has more information about recent results from these experiments.
Final results from the PROSPECT experiment
The Yale-led PRecision Oscillation and SPECTrum Experiment (PROSPECT) experiment presented its final results at the conference.
PROSPECT is designed to make precision measurements of antineutrinos emitted from nuclear reactors, search for sterile neutrinos, and help develop technology for the remote monitoring of nuclear reactors for safeguard and non-proliferation.
PROSPECT was designed and built at Yale’s Wright Lab in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and other universities. PROSPECT operated at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Karsten Heeger, Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, director of Wright Lab, and chair of the Yale Physics Department is principal investigator and co-spokesperson of PROSPECT.
The results presented are described in two upcoming papers. “Final Search for Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillations with the PROSPECT-I Detector at HFIR” demonstrated a 95% confidence level that sterile neutrinos do not exist within parameter regions previously unexplored by terrestrial experiments. “Reactor Antineutrino Directionality Measurement with the PROSPECT-I Detector” presented a detailed report on the directional measurements made on electron antineutrinos emitted from HFIR, which is the most precise directional reconstruction of reactor antineutrinos to date.
Heeger said, “The support of Wright Lab and Yale University were instrumental for the success of PROSPECT. The PROSPECT detector was built and assembled in 2017 at Wright Lab leveraging the technical capabilities of the lab. Many collaborators from BNL, LLNL, and other institutions participated in the assembly here at Yale. It was a unique training experience for students and postdocs to see the design, construction and deployment of a neutrino detector in less than two years.”
Poster presentations
Wright lab postdoctoral associate Jorge Torres and graduate student Samantha Pagan both presented posters about the CUORE experiment. Pagan presented “Low Energy Analyses with CUORE and a Search for Solar Axions“ and Torres presented “Reconstruction of muon events with the CUORE experiment”.
Torres said, “Several people stopped by my poster and asked questions about my project, and other more general questions regarding CUORE. Because of the large size of the conference, it was likely to find people who were trying to answer similar questions as yours, but with different experiments, which made it a favorable environment for the exchange of ideas.”
This article was adapted from the Wright Lab news article of July 5, 2024, by Victoria Misenti. See below for the link to the original article.