The Majorana Demonstrator for 0νββ: Current Status and Future Plans

Conference · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2015

OSTI ID:1185470

Green, Matthew P. ^[1]; Avignone, F. T. ^[2]; Bertrand, Jr, Fred E ^[1]; Galindo-Uribarri, Alfredo ^[1]; Radford, David C ^[1]; Romero-Romero, Elisa ^[1]; Varner, Jr, Robert L ^[1]; White, Brandon R ^[1]; Wilkerson, J. F. ^[3]; Yu, Chang-Hong ^[1]

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1. ORNL
2. University of South Carolina/Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
3. UNC/Triangle Univ. Nucl. Lab, Durham, NC/ORNL

The Majorana Demonstrator will search for neutrinoless-double-beta decay (0νββ) in 76Ge, while establishing the feasibility of a future tonne-scale germanium-based 0νββ experiment, and performing searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model. The experiment, currently under construction at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD, will consist of a pair of modular high-purity germanium detector arrays housed inside of a compact copper, lead, and polyethylene shield. Through a combination of strict materials qualifications and assay, low-background design, and powerful background rejection techniques, the Demonstrator aims to achieve a background rate in the 0νββ region of interest (ROI) of no more than 3cnts/(ROI-t-y). The current status of the Demonstrator is discussed, as are plans for its completion.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Contributing Organization: The MAJORANA Collaboration
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1185470
• Resource Relation: Conference: 13th International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics, Asilomar, CA, USA, 20130908, 20130913
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
neutrinoless double beta decay
germanium detector
majorana