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SNO+ will search for neutrinoless double beta decay by loading 780 tonnes of linear alkylbenzene liquid scintillator with O(tonne) of neodymium. Using natural Nd at 0.1% loading will provide 43.7 kg of 150Nd given its 5.6% abundance and allow the experiment to reach a sensitivity to the effective neutrino mass of 100-200 meV at 90% C.L in a 3 year run. The SNO+ detector has ultra low backgrounds with 7000 tonnes of water shielding and self-shielding of the scintillator. Distillation and several other purification techniques will be used with the aim of achieving Borexino levels of backgrounds. The experiment is fully funded and data taking with light-water will commence in 2012 with scintillator data following in 2013.

A review of accelerator long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments is provided, including all experiments performed to date and the projected sensitivity of those currently in progress. Accelerator experiments have played a crucial role in the confirmation of the neutrino oscillation phenomenon and in precision measurements of the parameters. With a fixed baseline and detectors providing good energy resolution, precise measurements of the ratio of distance/energy (L/E) on the scale of individual events have been made and the expected oscillatory pattern resolved. Evidence for electron neutrino appearance has recently been obtained, opening a door for determining the CP violating phase as well as resolving the mass hierarchy and the octant of θ23; some of the last unknown parameters of the standard model extended to include neutrino mass.

In 1956 Reines & Cowan discovered the neutrino using a liquid scintillator detector. The neutrinos interacted with the scintillator, producing light that propagated across transparent volumes to surrounding photo-sensors. This approach has remained one of the most widespread and successful neutrino detection technologies used since. This article introduces a concept that breaks with the conventional paradigm of transparency by confining and collecting light near its creation point with an opaque scintillator and a dense array of optical fibres. This technique, called LiquidO, can provide high-resolution imaging to enable efficient identification of individual particles event-by-event. A natural affinity for adding dopants at high concentrations is provided by the use of an opaque medium. With these and other capabilities, the potential of our detector concept to unlock opportunities in neutrino physics is presented here, alongside the results of the first experimental validation. Liquid scintillator detectors have been used to study neutrinos ever since their discovery in 1956. The authors introduce an opaque scintillator detector concept for future neutrino experiments with increased capacity for particle identification and a natural affinity for doping.

SNO+ will search for neutrinoless double beta decay by loading 780 tonnes of linear alkylbenzene liquid scintillator with O(tonne) of neodymium. Using natural Nd at 0.1% loading will provide 43.7 kg of super(150)Nd given its 5.6% abundance and allow the experiment to reach a sensitivity to the effective neutrino mass of 100-200 meV at 90% C.L in a 3 year run. The SNO+ detector has ultra low backgrounds with 7000 tonnes of water shielding and self-shielding of the scintillator. Distillation and several other purification techniques will be used with the aim of achieving Borexino levels of backgrounds. The experiment is fully funded and data taking with light-water will commence in 2012 with scintillator data following in 2013.

Tauopathies are the neurodegenerative diseases associated with the accumulation of misfolded tau protein. Despite many years of investigation, the mechanisms underpinning tau dependent proteinopathy remains to be elucidated. A protein quality control pathway within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), called unfolded protein response (UPR), has been suggested as a possible response implicated in the misfolded tau-mediated neurodegeneration. However, the question arose: how does the cytosolic protein tau that does not enter the ER induce a response stemming from this compartment? In this study we investigated three different human tauopathies to establish whether these diseases are associated with the activation of UPR. We probed for the modulation of several reliable UPR markers in mRNA and proteins extracted from 20 brain samples from Alzheimers disease (AD) patients, 11 from Picks disease (PiD) and 10 from Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) patients coupled to equal numbers of age-matched non-demented controls. This showed that different markers of UPR are not changed in any of the human tauopathies investigated. Interestingly, UPR signatures were often observed in non-demented controls. These data from human tissue further support the emerging evidence that the accumulation of misfolded cytosolic tau does not drive a diseased associated activation of UPR.

This paper reports results from a search for single and multi-nucleon disappearance from the \\(^{16}\\)O nucleus in water within the \\snoplus{} detector using all of the available data. These so-called \"invisible\" decays do not directly deposit energy within the detector but are instead detected through their subsequent nuclear de-excitation and gamma-ray emission. New limits are given for the partial lifetimes: \\(\\tau(n\\rightarrow inv) > 9.0\\times10^{29}\\) years, \\(\\tau(p\\rightarrow inv) > 9.6\\times10^{29}\\) years, \\(\\tau(nn\\rightarrow inv) > 1.5\\times10^{28}\\) years, \\(\\tau(np\\rightarrow inv) > 6.0\\times10^{28}\\) years, and \\(\\tau(pp\\rightarrow inv) > 1.1\\times10^{29}\\) years at 90\\% Bayesian credibility level (with a prior uniform in rate). All but the (\\(nn\\rightarrow inv\\)) results improve on existing limits by a factor of about 3.

SNO+ is a large-scale liquid scintillator experiment with the primary goal of searching for neutrinoless double beta decay, and is located approximately 2 km underground in SNOLAB, Sudbury, Canada. The detector acquired data for two years as a pure water Cherenkov detector, starting in May 2017. During this period, the optical properties of the detector were measured in situ using a deployed light diffusing sphere, with the goal of improving the detector model and the energy response systematic uncertainties. The measured parameters included the water attenuation coefficients, effective attenuation coefficients for the acrylic vessel, and the angular response of the photomultiplier tubes and their surrounding light concentrators, all across different wavelengths. The calibrated detector model was validated using a deployed tagged gamma source, which showed a 0.6% variation in energy scale across the primary target volume.

In 1956 Reines & Cowan discovered the neutrino using a liquid scintillator detector. The neutrinos interacted with the scintillator, producing light that propagated across transparent volumes to surrounding photo-sensors. This approach has remained one of the most widespread and successful neutrino detection technologies used since. This article introduces a concept that breaks with the conventional paradigm of transparency by confining and collecting light near its creation point with an opaque scintillator and a dense array of optical fibres. This technique, called LiquidO, can provide high-resolution imaging to enable efficient identification of individual particles event-by-event. A natural affinity for adding dopants at high concentrations is provided by the use of an opaque medium. With these and other capabilities, the potential of our detector concept to unlock opportunities in neutrino physics is presented here, alongside the results of the first experimental validation.