Current Status and Future Prospects of the SNO+ Experiment

SNO Collaboration, S Andringa, E Arushanova… - arXiv preprint arXiv …, 2015 - arxiv.org
SNO Collaboration, S Andringa, E Arushanova, S Asahi, M Askins, DJ Auty, AR Back…
arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.05759, 2015arxiv.org
SNO+ is a large liquid scintillator-based experiment located 2km underground at SNOLAB,
Sudbury, Canada. It reuses the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory detector, consisting of a 12m
diameter acrylic vessel which will be filled with about 780 tonnes of ultra-pure liquid
scintillator. Designed as a multipurpose neutrino experiment, the primary goal of SNO+ is a
search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay (0$\nu\beta\beta $) of 130Te. In Phase I, the
detector will be loaded with 0.3% natural tellurium, corresponding to nearly 800 kg of 130Te …
SNO+ is a large liquid scintillator-based experiment located 2km underground at SNOLAB, Sudbury, Canada. It reuses the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory detector, consisting of a 12m diameter acrylic vessel which will be filled with about 780 tonnes of ultra-pure liquid scintillator. Designed as a multipurpose neutrino experiment, the primary goal of SNO+ is a search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay (0) of 130Te. In Phase I, the detector will be loaded with 0.3% natural tellurium, corresponding to nearly 800 kg of 130Te, with an expected effective Majorana neutrino mass sensitivity in the region of 55-133 meV, just above the inverted mass hierarchy. Recently, the possibility of deploying up to ten times more natural tellurium has been investigated, which would enable SNO+ to achieve sensitivity deep into the parameter space for the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy in the future. Additionally, SNO+ aims to measure reactor antineutrino oscillations, low-energy solar neutrinos, and geoneutrinos, to be sensitive to supernova neutrinos, and to search for exotic physics. A first phase with the detector filled with water will begin soon, with the scintillator phase expected to start after a few months of water data taking. The 0 Phase I is foreseen for 2017.
arxiv.org