Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay with SNO+

TL;DR

SNO+ aims to detect neutrinoless double beta decay using a large liquid scintillator loaded with neodymium, employing advanced purification to achieve ultra-low backgrounds and reach sensitivities down to 100-200 meV in neutrino mass.

Contribution

This paper presents the design and expected sensitivity of the SNO+ experiment for neutrinoless double beta decay detection using neodymium-loaded scintillator.

Findings

Projected sensitivity to effective neutrino mass: 100-200 meV

Achieving Borexino-level background reduction techniques

Utilization of 43.7 kg of 150Nd for decay search

Abstract

SNO+ will search for neutrinoless double beta decay by loading 780 tonnes of linear alkylbenzene liquid scintillator with O(tonne) of neodymium. Using natural Nd at 0.1% loading will provide 43.7 kg of 150Nd given its 5.6% abundance and allow the experiment to reach a sensitivity to the effective neutrino mass of 100-200 meV at 90% C.L in a 3 year run. The SNO+ detector has ultra low backgrounds with 7000 tonnes of water shielding and self-shielding of the scintillator. Distillation and several other purification techniques will be used with the aim of achieving Borexino levels of backgrounds. The experiment is fully funded and data taking with light-water will commence in 2012 with scintillator data following in 2013.