IIHE invited seminar: SOX - Searching sterile neutrinos with Borexino

by Prof. Michael Wurm (Universitaet Mainz)

Friday 10 Mar 2017, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Brussels

Jean Sacton Seminar room (1G003) (IIHE, VUB)

abstract: Sterile neutrinos are amongst the most plausible options for an extension of the Standard Model but hard to detect by their very nature. Since several anomalous experimental results appeared hinting on the mixing of active and sterile neutrinos on the eV-mass scale, a worldwide effort has started to explore very short-baseline oscillations, aiming for definitive conformation or rejection of the inconclusive earlier findings. Amongst a variety of projects, the experimental setup of SOX is unique in using the existing low-energy neutrino detector Borexino as detector for electron antineutrinos from an intense radioactive Ce-144 source. Over the course of 1.5 years, 10,000 antineutrinos are expected to interact within the liquid-scintillator target in a virtually background-free precision measurement. If active-to-sterile neutrino oscillations take place, this will not only result in an overall reduction of the measured rate but will leave the imprint of the oscillation pattern in the reconstructed energy and distance distribution, possibly providing a smoking-gun signature of sterile neutrinos. If no rate deficit is seen, the limits set will exclude the oscillation parameter region currently favoured by the short-baseline anomalies.

Slides wurm_sox_brussels_mar17.pdf