The Status of SATURNE

Abstract

SATURNE is the Sarov tritium neutrino experiment that aims at the first observation of coherent elastic neutrino–atom scattering and the search for neutrino electromagnetic properties. A marked feature of the experiment is the use of a high-intensity tritium source of electron antineutrinos with a total tritium mass of at least 1 kg (10 MCi). Three detectors are being developed for the goals of the experiment. A 1-m\({}^{3}\) liquid He-4 detector operating at a temperature between 40 and 60 mK is designed both to register coherent elastic neutrino–atom scattering and to search for the neutrino magnetic moment at a level of \(\mu_{\nu}\sim 10^{-13}\,\mu_{\textrm{B}}\), which is about an order of magnitude better than the world-leading upper limits on the \(\mu_{\nu}\) value. A 4-kg Si crystal detector operating at a temperature in the range of 10–50 mK and a 14-kg SrI\({}_{2}\)(Eu) scintillation detector operating at a temperature between \(-60\) and \(-40\) \({}^{\circ}\)C are purposed for testing the \(\mu_{\nu}\) value on the order of \(\sim 10^{-12}\,\mu_{\textrm{B}}\), which is competitive with or even better than the world-leading upper limits.