On September 7, a collaboration agreement was signed between EDF and the CNRS concerning the SuperChooz project in neutrino physics. The signatories of this agreement were Reynald Pain, director of IN2P3 representing the CNRS, and Cédric Lewandowski, executive director of the EDF group. The IN2P3 laboratories involved in this project are IJCLab, LNCA (Chooz) and Subatech (Nantes). Witnesses to this event include Anatael Cabrera (IJCLab, PHE Pole, Neutrinos Team), scientific manager of the SuperChooz and LiquidO projects, Jean-François Le Du (IJCLab, Energy and Environment Pole and director of the Neutrino Champagne-Ardennes Laboratory, LNCA), and Gínes Martinez, director of the Subatech laboratory (Nantes).
This event opens the official launch of SuperChooz exploration. Preliminary studies towards SuperChooz began when the DoubleChooz experiment stopped (2018). The project was presented during a seminar at IJCLab in June 2022. For the next 5 years, a CNRS and EDF team, led on the CNRS side by Anatael Cabrera (national scientific manager), Jean-François Le Du (site manager) and Christian Bourgeois (IJCLab, Mechanical Department, technical manager), will study the scientific and technical feasibility of the SuperChooz project. This project paves the way for the third generation of fundamental physics experiments on neutrinos at the Chooz-B nuclear power plant. One of the challenges is to obtain a rejection rate of the background noise associated with cosmic rays never achieved before. Thus, the SuperChooz detectors will use LiquidO, an innovative detection technique, developed at the CNRS by members of IJCLab (at the time APC and LAL). The 10,000 m3 SuperChooz main detector, built from 2030 for operation from 2035, could also detect solar neutrinos and would constitute the first European installation of this size on the site of the Chooz-A nuclear reactor, currently under construction. dismantling. The Chooz site would become a “Platform” of major scientific interest for neutrino physics.
An interview with Anatael Cabrera on the IN2P3 News website.