From SNO to SNO+:  Neutrinos and Astroparticle Physics

Dr. Aksel Hallin
Department of Physics
University of Alberta

The SNO experiment, which was a 1 kilotonne heavy water Cerenkov detector 2 km underground in a nickel mine measured neutrinos from the sun and proved that neutrinos have mass and oscillate.  It also demonstrated that our understanding of the fusion reactions in the sun is substantially correct.  SNO finished running last year and has been drained of heavy water this year.  We have proposed a new experiment, SNO+ which will modify the apparatus to allow the use of liquid scintillator, and will use that modified detector to study neutrinoless double beta decay, low energy solar neutrinos, neutrinos from nuclear reactors, geoneutrinos and neutrinos from supernovae.