Speaker
Description
The Double Chooz experiment delivered some of the most precise reactor-antineutrino measurements to date. With its legacy established and backgrounds well characterised, the Chooz underground site — powered by two N4-generation PWR cores — remains one of Europe’s most compelling facilities for reactor-antineutrino physics. Two new programmes are now charting the site’s next chapter (3rd generation), both built on the LiquidO detection paradigm — the deliberate exploitation of opaque scintillating media for event-by-event topology imaging.
The first is CLOUD experiment, a reactor-sited funded and developed as byproduct of the AntiMatterOTech programme (EIC “Pathfinder”) currently under construction, through a sequence of three experimental stages. CLOUD will deploy the LiquidO technology at the neutrino-physics scale for the first time, validating event-topology imaging, positron tagging and the heavy-target loading capabilities unique to opaque scintillators. Located in the so-called Ultra-Near-Detector position, at ~35 m from the reactor core, the experiment is expected to collect tens of thousands of antineutrinos per day. While designed as a technological demonstrator, CLOUD carries its own scientific agenda: addressing open questions with reactor-antineutrinos and exploring novel detection channels; including special sensitivity to spent-fuel antineutrinos relevant to nuclear safeguards.
The second is SuperChooz, a substantially larger LiquidO detector currently under exploration. SuperChooz inherits and scales up the techniques proven by CLOUD, with a twin scientific mission. On the reactor side, it aims to measure θ13 to per-mille precision — an order of magnitude beyond the current world average. Simultaneously, SuperChooz targets real-time solar-neutrino astrophysics, including, for the first time, spectroscopy of the pp neutrinos (directly sensitive to vacuum θ12) via charged-current interactions on indium-loaded opaque scintillator — a detection channel that LiquidO’s heavy loading is uniquely suited to enable. The combination of reactor and solar measurements in a single detector opens a new window for precision oscillation physics and multi-messenger probes of the solar interior.
I will present the physics case, the detector concept and the status of both programmes, with the main focus on CLOUD.