PROSPECT, the Precision Reactor Oscillation and SPECTrum experiment

PROSPECT is a reactor-based short-baseline anti-neutrino experiment deployed at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and taking data since March 2018.
Designed to precisely measure the $^{235}$U anti-neutrino spectrum and search for oscillations due to the existence of an eV$^2$-scale sterile neutrino, the optically segmented 4-ton $^{6}$Li-loaded liquid scintillator anti-neutrino detector utilizes pulse-shape discrimination, temporal and spatial topology to identify anti-neutrinos and reject most cosmogenic backgrounds. In addition, preparatory background measurement campaigns at HFIR have enabled shielding optimization to minimize reactor-related backgrounds allowing a successful surface anti-neutrino measurement. This talk will give an introduction to PROSPECT experiment with recent updates on PROSPECT data analysis. Ongoing studies on background stray magnetic field monitoring and optical properties of liquid scintillator are also presented.