Overview
- The Oxford-led SNO+ Collaboration reports the first evidence of this interaction in Physical Review Letters.
- Over 231 days of data taking between May 2022 and June 2023, the analysis found 5.6 events, consistent with 4.7 expected from solar neutrinos.
- The measurement delivers the lowest-energy observation on carbon-13 to date and the first direct cross-section to the nitrogen-13 ground state.
- SNO+ operates two kilometers underground at SNOLAB inside a 12-meter acrylic vessel holding about 800 tonnes of liquid scintillator and roughly 9,000 photomultiplier tubes.
- Researchers say the result enables solar neutrinos to be used as a test beam for probing rare, low-energy interactions, building on the legacy of the original SNO experiment.