Neutrino Physics Beyond SNO – Mark Chen
Date: Thu. November 5th, 2009, 4:15 pm-5:15 pmLocation: Rockefeller 301
A follow-up experiment to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is being developed, called SNO+. With a liquid scintillator replacing the heavy water, SNO+ will examine neutrino phenomena at lower energies than SNO. Physics goals include: detecting the CNO solar neutrinos and using them to resolve a new puzzle related to solar chemical composition; precision measurements of the survival probability of pep solar neutrinos at the transition energy between vacuum- and matter-dominated oscillations; and measuring the flux of geo-neutrinos at a detector site where the local geology has been extensively characterized, enabling the measurement to address fundamental questions in geoscience. We also plan to add neodymium to the SNO+ liquid scintillator in order to perform a competitive next-generation 0-nu double beta decay search. The physics capabilities and the status of the experiment will be presented.