Geoneutrinos and reactor antineutrinos at SNO+

Abstract

In the heart of the Creighton Mine near Sudbury (Canada), the SNO+ detector is foreseen to observe almost in equal proportion electron antineutrinos produced by U and Th in the Earth and by nuclear reactors. SNO+ will be the first long baseline experiment to measure a reactor signal dominated by CANDU cores (∼55% of the total reactor signal), which generally burn natural uranium. Approximately 18% of the total geoneutrino signal is generated by the U and Th present in the rocks of the Huronian Supergroup-Sudbury Basin: the 60% uncertainty on the signal produced by this lithologic unit plays a crucial role on the discrimination power on the mantle signal as well as on the geoneutrino spectral shape reconstruction, which can in principle provide a direct measurement of the Th/U ratio in the Earth.