creator Zhang, Xianyi 2019 Fall 2019 Dissertation Illinois Institute of Technology PHYS / Physics advisor Littlejohn, Bryce advisor White, Christopher Particle physics Fission reactor Neutrino Nuclear physics Particle detector technology en Neutrinos from nuclear fission reactors have been widely studied in particle and nuclear physics. In the last ten years, the antineutrino flux and spectrum were measured independently by short baseline reactor experiments. Both flux and spectrum measurements showed discrepancies compared to theoretical models based on historical measurements and nuclear databases. These discrepancies hint at sterile neutrino oscillation at the eV mass scale, as well as an incomplete theoretical model. PROSPECT, the Precision Reactor Oscillation and Spectrum experiment, was built to probe for sterile neutrino oscillations and precisely measure the reactor antineutrino spectrum from a highly 235U enriched reactor. The PROSPECT antineutrino detector is an optically segmented liquid scintillator detector deployed at seven meters to nine meters from the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This dissertation details the analysis to calibrate the energy scale of the PROSPECT antineutrino detector, an essential step for both the oscillation and spectrum measurements. To characterize the nonlinear detector energy response, a unique calibration and analysis strategy was developed to overcome challenges brought on by particle multi-segment scattering within the PROSPECT detector. With the calibrated scale for energy reconstruction, PROSPECT measured of the antineutrino spectrum from a 235U-burning reactor. born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access http://hdl.handle.net/10560/islandora:1009780