MAJORANA Collaboration's Experience with Germanium Detectors

Journal Article · Fri May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Journal of Physics. Conference Series

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/606/1/012005· OSTI ID:1452872

Mertens, S.; Abgrall, N.; Avignone, F. T.; Barabash, A. S.; Bertrand, F. E.; Brudanin, V.; Busch, M.; Buuck, M.; Byram, D.; Caldwell, A. S.; Chan, Y-D; Christofferson, C. D.; Cuesta, C.; Detwiler, J. A.; Efremenko, Yu; Ejiri, H.; Elliott, S. R.; Galindo-Uribarri, A.; Giovanetti, G. K.; Goett, J. ; Green, M. P.; Gruszko, J.; Guinn, I.; Guiseppe, V. E.; Henning, R.; Hoppe, E. W.; Howard, S.; Howe, M. A.; Jasinski, B. R.; Keeter, K. J.; Kidd, M. F.; Konovalov, S. I.; Kouzes, R. T.; LaFerriere, B. D.; Leon, J.; MacMullin, J.; Martin, R. D.; Meijer, S. J.; Orrell, J. L.; O'Shaughnessy, C.; Overman, N. R.; Poon, A. W. P.; Radford, D. C.; Rager, J.; Rielage, K.; Robertson, R. G. H.; Romero-Romero, E.; Ronquest, M. C.; Shanks, B.; Shirchenko, M.; Snyder, N.; Suriano, A. M.; Tedeschi, D.; Trimble, J. E.; Varner, R. L.; Vasilyev, S.; Vetter, K.; Vorren, K.; White, B. R.; Wilkerson, J. F.; Wiseman, C.; Xu, W.; Yakushev, E.; Yu, C-H; Yumatov, V.

A unique way to explore the nature of the neutrino is the search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ). Observation of 0νββ-decay would decisively prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles and that lepton number is violated. The Majorana Demonstrator will perform a search for 0νββ-decay in 76Ge. The experiment is currently under construction at the Sanford Underground Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, USA. The Majorana Demonstrator will use an array of 40 kg of high purity germanium detectors, up to 30 kg of which will be enriched to 86% in 76Ge, surrounded by passive and active shielding. The major goal is to demonstrate a path forward to achieving a background rate at or below 3 counts/(ROI-t-y) in the 4 keV region of interest (ROI) around the 2039 keV Q-value of the 76Ge 0νββ decay. This is required for the next generation of tonne-scale germanium-based 0νββ-decay searches that are designed to probe the neutrino mass scale in the inverted-hierarchy region. Beyond the usage of ultra-clean material and extensive shielding, a key feature to achieve a low background level is a high energy resolution to minimize the ROI and pulse-shape discrimination capability to distinguish signal from background events. These properties are provided by High Purity (HP) P-type Point Contact (PPC) germanium (Ge) detectors. By enriching the natural germanium to 87% in 76Ge the detectors can be used as source and detector simultaneously. At the time of this presentation, 30 enriched detectors with average mass of 840 g have been delivered and successfully tested at SURF. All detectors met the requirements during characterization in vendor cryostat and are now being assembled in the final Majorana Demonstrator experiment.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Contributing Organization: MAJORANA Collaboration
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1452872
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-111593; KB0401022
• Journal Information: Journal of Physics. Conference Series, Vol. 606; ISSN 1742-6588
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English