In the future, the result of this study and the methods employed by the SNO+ collaboration could inform additional antineutrino searches and measurements using pure water Cherenkov detectors. They achieved this using ultra-pure water and minimizing natural radioactivity in the detector, which can produce confounding background events resembling the coincidence signal they were looking for. The SNO+ collaboration was the first to detect antineutrinos in a water Cherenkov detector.

Therefore, the achievement of detecting the 2.2-MeV ? with higher efficiency can impact a broad range of antineutrino searches and measurements made with pure water Cherenkov detectors.' 'The neutron produced in an IBD captures on hydrogen in the water and produces a 2.2-MeV ?, regardless of the energy of the incident antineutrino.

'This worked for us-a first in a water detector-because our neutron detection efficiency is high,' Lebanowski said. To extract the signal, they conducted two independent analyses, which yielded consistent results. Kraus and the rest of the SNO+ collaboration specifically searched for this signal in data collected during a period of 190 days. When trying to detect antineutrinos from reactors, physicists are essentially searching for a unique signal known as 'coincidence signal,' which clearly indicates the presence of anti-neutrinos. We then can determine energy and position of the event.' Photomultipliers convert the signal into an electrical one that can be processed. 'This light then can be recognized by Photomultipliers, we have ~9500 surrounding the acrylic vessel mounted on a steel structure. 'This provides a large volume for particles coming in to interact and produce light,' Christine Kraus explained. At the time of the experiment, it was filled with ultra-pure water. The SNO+ detector is a large acrylic vessel, measuring 12m in diameter. The detector also has the lowest reported rates of background-inducing muons from the atmosphere among water Cherenkov detectors, which significantly improved the team's chances of detecting antineutrinos. Given that the SNO+ detector has a good enough sensitivity to measure reactor antineutrinos with a liquid scintillator, the SNO+ collaboration set out to explore the possibility that antineutrinos could also be observed using water. Prior to this, the collaboration filled the detector with water to calibrate detector components and characterize intrinsic radioactive backgrounds.' 'With the detector currently filled with scintillator, SNO+ is also measuring the neutrino mass splitting ? m 2 21 using reactor antineutrinos. 'The primary goal of the SNO+ experiment is to conduct a high-sensitivity search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a tellurium-loaded liquid scintillator,' Logan Lebanowski told on behalf of the SNO+ collaboration. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, could pave the way for new antineutrino searches using water Cherenkov detectors. The SNO+ experiment, a large-scale research effort collecting data using the multipurpose particle detector at SNOLAB, recently gathered the first evidence of reactor antineutrinos inside a water Cherenkov detector (i.e., a type of particle detector that detects radiation and reconstructs information about particles). This is a signal produced during nuclear reactions, which involve an electron antineutrino with a proton, producing a positron and a neutron. Neutrinos produced in nuclear reactors are detected through the so-called inverse beta decay (IBD). As neutrinos hardly interact with other particles, they are generally hard to detect.

These efforts led to significant physics discoveries, from the first detection of neutrinos in the late 1950s to recent measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters.

Sno plus merchandise neutrino