The Majorana Demonstrator: Progress towards showing the feasibility of a 76Ge neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment
The Majorana Demonstrator will search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay (0*) of the 76Ge isotope with a mixed array of enriched and natural germanium detectors. The observation of this rare decay would indicate the neutrino is its own anti-particle, demonstrate that lepton number is not conserved, and provide information on the absolute mass-scale of the neutrino. The Demonstrator is being assembled at the 4850 foot level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The array will be contained in a lowbackground environment and surrounded by passive and active shielding. The goals for the Demonstrator are: demonstrating a background rate less than 3 counts tonne -1 year-1 in the 4 keV region of interest (ROI) surrounding the 2039 keV 76Ge endpoint energy; establishing the technology required to build a tonne-scale germanium based double-beta decay experiment; testing the recent claim of observation of 0; and performing a direct search for lightWIMPs (3-10 GeV/c2).
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1203924
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-101382; KB0401022
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 18th International Symposium on Particles Strings and Cosmology (PASCOS 2012), June 3-8, 2012, Merida, Mexico. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 485(1):Paper No. 012042
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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