Date/Time
Date(s) - 23/03/2011
3:20 pm - 4:20 pm

Title: SNO+

Speaker: Dr. Mark Chen, Queen’s University

Institute: Queen’s University

Location: ABB 102

Description:

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory has a successor: the SNO+ experiment. The original SNO detector is being modified so that it can be filled with liquid scintillator. SNO+ as a liquid scintillator neutrino experiment will have diverse physics goals. These include: studying neutrino-matter couplings (MSW effect) for low energy solar neutrinos, probing the solar core chemical composition by detecting CNO solar neutrinos, measuring the U and Th abundance in the Earth
with geo neutrinos, thereby testing models of the continents and of Earth’s chemical origin, improving measurements of reactor neutrino oscillations, and serving as a supernova neutrino monitor. In a separate running phase of the experiment, SNO+ will search for neutrinoless double beta decay with Nd-150 dissolved in the liquid scintillator. Competitive sensitivity will be achieved, including testing for (and/or excluding) the existing, claimed observation of
neutrinoless double beta decay in Ge-76. This talk presents an overview of the SNO+ experiment and the current construction status.