Research in Experimental Neutrino Physics

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Understanding the origin of the observed matter - antimatter asymmetry in the universe is one of the primary goals of physics and cosmology. One potential explanation for the asymmetry requires the neutrino be its own antiparticle, meaning that the neutrino and antineutrino are the same particle. If the neutrino has this property it would show that the neutrino gets its mass in a fundamentally different way than all other particles, and help explain the absence of antimatter in the universe. Neutrinoless double beta decay is the only practical way to establish if the neutrino is its own antiparticle. This award will support the PI and his group in a search for neutrinoless double beta decay using the SNO+ detector in an operating mine in Sudbury Ontario. SNO+ is a multipurpose neutrino experiment whose primary goal is a search for neutrinoless double beta decay using tellurium (Te) dissolved in the liquid scintillator. SNO+ will also a have broad program of neutrino physics including measurements of solar neutrinos, nucleon decay, reactor neutrinos, geo-neutrinos, and detection of neutrinos from a supernova should one occur. The SNO+ benefits from a high mass of isotope and several other advantages. If the background levels are as anticipated, the SNO+ technique (i.e., using a large liquid scintillator detector) could provide an extremely cost-effective way to cover a wide range of effective Majorana masses.