The SNO+ Experiment

TL;DR

The SNO+ experiment upgrades the original SNO detector with liquid scintillator to explore various neutrino phenomena, including solar, geo, reactor, supernova neutrinos, and neutrinoless double beta decay, aiming for high sensitivity in neutrino mass measurements.

Contribution

It introduces the SNO+ detector with liquid scintillator and neodymium doping, enabling diverse neutrino physics studies and a competitive search for neutrinoless double beta decay.

Findings

Potential to detect pep and CNO solar neutrinos.

Ability to study geo-neutrinos and reactor neutrino oscillations.

Projected sensitivity below 100 meV for neutrinoless double beta decay.

Abstract

The SNO+ experiment is the follow-up to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). The heavy water that was in SNO will be replaced with a liquid scintillator of linear alkylbenzene (plus fluor). SNO+ has many physics goals including detecting pep and CNO solar neutrinos, detecting geo-neutrinos, studying reactor neutrino oscillations, serving as a supernova neutrino detector and carrying out a search for neutrinoless double beta decay by adding neodymium to the liquid scintillator. Since a large amount of 150Nd isotope can be added to SNO+, a competitive search would be possible, with sensitivity below 100 meV using natural Nd and sensitivity below 40 meV with enriched neodymium.