The SuperChooz Pathfinder Exploration

• Anatael CABRERA (IJCLab/LNCA - IN2P3/CNRS)

Room: 100/-1-A900 - Auditorium Joliot Curie A new possible flagship neutrino experiment in Europe opens by exploiting a unique opportunity that has long been hidden in the Chooz nuclear reactor site — Europe’s historical and most powerful reactor neutrino science site. The “SuperChooz” project benefits by existence of 2 caverns, formerly hosting the Chooz-A nuclear reactor complex, built in the 60’s, that are becoming vacant upon its dismantling completion. The caverns hold a total volume of up to 50 000m^3, thus directly comparable to the size of SuperKamiokande. Its potential use for fundamental science purposes is under active discussion with EDF, thus starting the “pathfinder” exploration era. The SuperChooz caverns combined with the existing ~1km baseline to two of the most powerful N4 Chooz PWR nuclear reactors make this site a unique asset to Europe and specially France. Experimentally, the challenge is the poor overburden (order 100m underground). However, the novel LiquidO technology, born as a byproduct of Double Chooz experiment in the same site, heralds the potential for unprecedented active background rejection of up to two orders of magnitude, thus providing feasibility potential ground for a hypothetical SuperChooz. In this seminar, the rationale of the scientific programme of the hypothetical SuperChooz experiment will be highlighted for the first time. The project is aimed to address some of the most fundamental symmetries (studies under completion) behind the Standard Model, including a design that may open for key synergies that may boost the sensitivities of other neutrino flagship experiments such as DUNE (US), JUNO (China) and HyperKamiokande (Japan).