SNO+: Physics program and status update
Joining the current generation of neutrinoless double beta decay experiments, SNO+ is a kilotonne-scale liquid scintillator neutrino detector housed 2 km underground in Vale Canada Ltd’s Creighton Mine near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Through re-purposing existing hardware in place for the now decommissioned Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), and employing a rigourous materials purification and selection program, SNO+ will investigate neutrinoless double beta decay of {sup 130}Te. Owing to its size, SNO+ expects a sensitivity to the effective Majorana neutrino mass near 100 meV with a 0.3% loading of natural Te and several years of data collection. Designed as a general purpose detector, SNO+ also has a robust physics program that includes investigations of solar and supernova neutrinos, and reactor and geo anti-neutrinos. Construction of the detector is nearly complete, with the first water-fill commissioning phase set to begin at the end of this year and the neutrinoless double beta decay phase following in late 2014.