SNO plus SNO+

Steve Biller (Oxford University)
Zoom (DESY Zeuthen), 13.00

Neutrinos are one of the most fundamental and enigmatic particles in nature, with a history of throwing up surprises and having properties that are still not entirely understood. the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) was a seminal experiment in Canada studying neutrinos from the Sun. This experiment found the first unambiguously proof that neutrinos can transform between different varieties, demonstrating that neutrinos exist as mixed states and have mass. These properties are beyond predictions of The Standard Model of particle physics and earned the project a Nobel Prize in 2015. Today, a variation of that instrument called SNO+ will search for a rare decay process known as neutrinoless double beta decay to look for evidence that neutrinos can also transform into their own antiparticles. Such a discovery would have profound implications for the origin of neutrino mass and could provide an explanation for the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe that explains how we all managed to survived annihilation. The technique being pioneered by SNO+ is potentially one of the most scalable approaches and might possibly lead to a future experiment capable of exploring the theoretically interesting region known as the non-degenerate normal mass ordering for neutrinos.


This is a VIDEO COLLOQUIUM!

Connection details at https://desy.zoom.us/j/99616528733

Meeting ID: 996 1652 8733
Meeting Password: 733220