Research in Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay (Final Report)

Technical Report · Mon Jun 14 00:00:00 EDT 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1787959· OSTI ID:1787959

Guiseppe, Vincente E. ^[1]

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1. Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (United States)

The research objective of the supported work was to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in ⁷⁶Ge and investigate and identify backgrounds to a double-beta decay search. Understanding the neutrino mass generation mechanism, the absolute neutrino mass scale, the neutrino mass spectrum, and the possible Majorana nature of neutrinos are some of the future discoveries of the next generation neutrino experiments. The Majorana collaboration operated the Demonstrator experiment comprising 44 kg (30 kg enriched in ⁷⁶Ge) of Ge detectors in total split between two modules contained in a low background shield at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. Observation of 0νββ would have profound implications for the Standard Model of particle physics by demonstrating that neutrinos are Majorana particles, that lepton number is not conserved, and it would provide a measure of the effective Majorana neutrino mass. The decay rate of 0νββ is incredibly small and may only produce a few signature events in a detector per year. Therefore, observation of this rare process demands a careful study and implementation of signal processing, detector design, and new levels of background suppression.

• Research Organization: Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
• DOE Contract Number: SC0012612
• OSTI ID: 1787959
• Report Number(s): DOE-USC-12612-1; TRN: US2216225
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS