The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: A Search for Neutrino less Double-beta Decay of Ge-76

Conference · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015

OSTI ID:1338509

Xu, W. ^[1]; Abgrall, N. ^[2]; Avignone, III, F. T. ^[3]; Barabash, A.S. ^[4]; Bertrand, F. E. ^[5]; Efremenko, Yuri ^[6]; Galindo-Uribarri, Alfredo  ^[7]; Green, M. P. ^[5]; Radford, D. C. ^[5]; Romero-Romero, E. ^[6]; Varner, R. L. ^[5]; White, B. R. ^[5]; Wilkerson, J. F. ^[8]; Yu, C.-H. ^[5]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
2. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
3. University of South Carolina
4. Institute of Theoretical & Experimental Physics (ITEP), Moscow, Russia
5. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
6. University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK)
7. ORNL
8. UNC/Triangle Univ. Nucl. Lab, Durham, NC/ORNL

Neutrino less double-beta (Ov beta beta) decay is a hypothesized process where in some even-even nuclei it might be possible for two neutrons to simultaneously decay into two protons and two electrons without emitting neutrinos. This is possible only if neutrinos are Majorana particles, i.e. fermions that are their own antiparticles. Neutrinos being Majorana particles would explicitly violate lepton number conservation, and might play a role in the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would also provide complementary information related to neutrino masses. The MAJORANA Collaboration is constructing the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, with a total of 40-kg Germanium detectors, to search for the Ov beta beta decay of Ge-76 and to demonstrate a background rate at or below 3 counts/ (ROI.t.y) in the 4 keV region of interest (ROT) around the 2039 keV Q-value for Ge-76 Ov beta beta decay. In this paper, we discuss the physics of neutrinoless double beta decay and then focus on the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, including its design and approach to achieve ultra-low backgrounds and the status of the experiment.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1338509
• Resource Relation: Conference: 2nd Workshop on Germanium Detectors and Technologies - Vermillion, South Dakota, United States of America - 9/14/2014 12:00:00 AM-9/17/2014 12:00:00 AM
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English