The SNO+ Experiment for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay

Abstract SNO+ is a large scale liquid scintillator based experiment located 2 km underground in a mine near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The detector is reusing the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory facility to investigate the Majorana nature of neutrinos through the search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 130 Te. In the double-beta phase about 0.3% natural tellurium will be loaded in the 780 tonnes of liquid scintillator. This corresponds to nearly 800 kg of 130 Te. After several years of data taking, it is expected to reach a sensitivity on the effective Majorana neutrino mass below 100 meV. Recent development has suggested that higher loadings, up to few percent, of natural tellurium are possible by which SNO+ could approach, in the near future, the bottom of the inverted hierarchy. Additionally, designed as a general purpose neutrino experiment, SNO+ can measure reactor anti-neutrino oscillations, geo anti-neutrinos in a geologically-interesting location, solar neutrinos and watch supernova neutrinos. A first commissioning phase with the detector filled with water will start at the end of 2014, while the double-beta decay phase is foreseen for the beginning of 2016.