Studying Neutrinos with SNO+ at SNOLAB

Fri., Mar. 5, 2021 2:30 p.m. - Fri., Mar. 5, 2021 3:30 p.m.

Location: Zoom **special time**

Abstract: The nature of the neutrino has been a question puzzling physicists since its postulation in 1930. SNOLAB, Canada's deep underground astroparticle physics laboratory, was founded on one of the experiments designed to answer questions about the neutrino, the Nobel-prize winning SNO experiment. SNOLAB is a leading underground facility, 2km deep in Vale’s Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario. In this environment, cosmic radiation induced backgrounds are minimized to levels allowing the operation of sophisticated experiments. The SNO experiment has now transformed to SNO+, we are still trying to understand more about the elusive "little neutral one". SNO+ is a multi-purpose experiment whose main purpose is to study the nature of the neutrino mass through observation of neutrino-less double beta decay. Detection of this rare process would indicate that neutrinos are elementary Majorana particles, different from the rest of the standard model family of particles. SNO+ can also measure neutrino oscillation parameters, detect geo- and reactor anti-neutrinos and low energy solar neutrinos while its main goal is to search for neutrino-less double beta decay in the isotope Tellurium-130. The first of the three SNO+ phases started in May 2017, with the detector filled with ultra-pure water. SNO+ began the transition to the scintillator phase in late 2018. The double-beta decay phase will start when the ultra-pure liquid scintillator will be loaded with 3.9 tonnes of natural tellurium, for a half-life sensitivity larger than 2x10^26 years. Previous results, current status, and the potential and prospect of SNO+ for precise solar neutrino measurements and neutrino-less double beta decay search will be presented.

Speaker: Dr. Erica Caden, SNOLAB