Status and Physics Potential of SATURNE

The Sarov Tritium Neutrino Experiment (SATURNE) is designed to study coherent elastic neutrino–atom scattering (CE $$\nu$$ AS) and to search for the neutrino magnetic moment. The measurements will be performed in a low-background laboratory in Sarov using a liquid He-4 detector in a superfluid state and a high-intensity tritium source of electron antineutrinos. The He-4 detector with a total volume of 1000 liters will operate at a temperature between 40 and 60 mK and will be sensitive to energy signals of the order of a few meV due to the quantum evaporation channel. The tritium source will have an activity of about at least 10 MCi and possibly up to 40 MCi. It is expected that after five years of data collection, SATURNE will be able to report the first observation of the CE $$\nu$$ AS process. By measuring this neutrino interaction channel, it will achieve sensitivity to the neutrino magnetic moment $$\mu_{\nu}$$ at a level of $${\sim}10^{-13}\,\mu_{\textrm{B}}$$ , which is about an order of magnitude better than the current world-leading constraints.