Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2022
Volume 67, Number 6
Saturday–Tuesday, April 9–12, 2022; New York
Session B14: Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay IRecordings Available
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Sponsoring Units: DNP Chair: Krishna Kumar, UMass Amherst Room: Empire |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 10:45AM - 10:57AM |
B14.00001: Results of the CUPID-Mo Experiment Bradford C Welliver CUPID-Mo was a successful demonstrator experiment for CUPID (CUORE Upgrade with Particle ID), the planned next-generation upgrade of the first ton scale cryogenic calorimetric 0νββ decay experiment, CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events). CUPID-Mo operated at Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane in France as an array of 20 enriched Li2100MoO4 (LMO) cylindrical scintillating crystals (~210g each) each facing a Ge light detector (LD) and operated at ~20 mK. Both were instrumented with NTD thermistors allowing for the collection of both heat and scintillation light which makes $\alpha$ events easily distinguishable from β/γ events. This significantly reduces the background resulting from degraded α energy collection in the heat channel. CUPID-Mo demonstrated an energy resolution of ~7 keV (FWHM) at 2615 keV, complete α / (β/γ) discrimination and very low radioactive contamination. Here we report the results of an analysis of the full CUPID-Mo exposure, with details on improved analysis techniques and present an updated limit on the 0νββ decay half-life for 100Mo. We also discuss analysis of a 56Co calibration to probe the energy bias and resolution scaling, especially near the Q-value (3034 keV) of the decay. A brief overview of other ongoing analyses will also be presented. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 10:57AM - 11:09AM |
B14.00002: Research and development progress toward DEMETER & CUPID-1T Erin Hansen CUORE is an ongoing neutrinoless double-beta decay search using the isotope 130Te. The next generation detector, CUORE with Upgraded Particle IDentification (CUPID), will use scintillation light from Li2100MoO4 cryogenic calorimeters to tag particles by their heat-to-light signal ratio. CUPID is under development at the 250 kg level, but is looking to the next stage with 1 tonne of 100Mo (CUPID-1T). Scaling the next generation of crystalline detectors to this size requires ten thousand channels or more, as well as advancements in pileup discrimination and background reduction; R&D efforts underway towards this goal are discussed. We specifically discuss the DEMETER project, a collaboration between UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory toward implementation of a multiplexed readout and event discrimination at the single-crystal level. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
B14.00003: Sensitivity of the CUPID Experiment to Solar Neutrinos Ruoxi Wang The solar neutrino flux is an important source for studying neutrino properties. Measurements of the solar neutrino flux can provide information on the neutrino oscillation effects, the solar inner structure and the Standard Solar Model (SSM). Previous studies by Ejiri et al show that double-beta decay detectors can be sensitive to solar neutrinos through charged current and neutral current interactions. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
B14.00004: LEGEND-1000: Discovering 0νββin 76Ge at the Ton Scale Julieta Gruszko The discovery of the lepton-number-violating neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) would determine the Majorana or Dirac nature of neutrinos, indicate the origin of neutrino mass, and provide a path to leptogenesis in the early universe. LEGEND-1000, the proposed the ton-scale phase of the LEGEND program, would search for the 0νββ of 76Ge. LEGEND-1000 builds on the success of GERDA and the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, which have achieved the lowest background levels and the best energy resolution in the region-of-interest in the field, and on the ongoing LEGEND-200 experiment. The LEGEND-1000 experiment's technical design, energy resolution, material selection, and background suppression techniques combine to project a background-free search for 0νββ at a half-life beyond 1028 yrs and a discovery sensitivity that covers the inverted-ordering neutrino mass scale. LEGEND-1000’s technical readiness and discovery potential will be presented. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
B14.00005: Surface Alpha Background Rejection through Pulse Shape Discrimination in the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Alexandru Hostiuc The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is an experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 76Ge. The experiment consists of two modular arrays with about 45 kg of high purity Germanium detectors, 30 kg of which is enriched to 88% in 76Ge, operating at the 4850' level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD. P-type point contact detector technology allows for the rejection of specific background event populations through pulse-shape analysis. For the MAJORANA analysis of the total exposure collected with enriched detectors, the main parameter used to reduce the observed alpha background is called DCR (delayed charge recovery). This parameter estimates the slope of an event's waveform after the rising edge to identify alpha-like events that originate from the passivated surface of the detector; such events have a characteristic delayed charge collection component. We present the performance of, and improvements to, surface alpha background rejection using DCR, and show its influence on the sensitivity of the experiment. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
B14.00006: Pulse Shape-Based-Analysis using Machine Learning in the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Tupendra K Oli |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
B14.00007: Energy Resolution Overview in NEXT Detectors Diego F Lopez Gutierrez Neutrinos have shown a glimpse of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) due to experimental confirmation of neutrino oscillations. Current neutrino research aims to study the nature of the neutrino mass, more specifically whether the neutrino is a Dirac or Majorana particle. If Majorana in nature, the neutrino would be its own antiparticle, providing a rich phenomenological study of BSM scenarios. To test this hypothesis, the NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) collaboration utilizes high-pressure xenon time projection chamber detectors to look for neutrinoless double-beta decays (0vββ), a telltale sign of Majorana neutrinos. If allowed by Nature, 0vββ would be one of the rarest interactions in the universe that requires state-of-the-art detectors with very powerful background rejection and energy resolutions at the sub-percent level. For the Xe-136 isotope employed in NEXT, the signal peak occurs at 2.5 MeV and we expect to achieve an energy resolution below 1% FWHM as demonstrated by the NEXT-White (NEW) detector, the predecessor of the upcoming NEXT-100. In this presentation, we will cover how the energy resolution is studied at the different detector generations of NEXT; namely, we will focus on NEW, NEXT-100, and future NEXT detectors. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
B14.00008: Performance of a Single Ion Imaging Microscope in Noble Gas Environments for Barium Tagging Karen E Navarro Single ion barium tagging is a technology that, if it can be demonstrated to work with high efficiency, could reduce the backgrounds in searches for neutrinoless double beta decay to negligible levels in ton- to multi-ton-scale systems. This talk will present progress toward a barium tagging technology for xenon gas detectors based on single molecule fluorescence imaging (SMFI). We will review the chemical and optical techniques that have been implemented to realize single ion sensing fluorescent sensors in high pressure gas environments by the NEXT collaboration. New results will be presented from experiments designed to demonstrate single barium ion capture and detection in dry noble gases. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 12:21PM - 12:33PM |
B14.00009: Sensitivity analysis towards trace-uranium detection with γ-γ coincidence NAA Raymond Hei Man M Tsang, Omar Nusair, Andreas G Piepke Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a powerful trace-element analysis technique widely used in radioassay for rare event searches, such as neutrinoless double beta decays, where extremely radiopure materials are often required. Thus, the ability to detect radioactive isotopes at sub-ppt concentrations is crucial for material screening. However, some materials are particularly hard to radioassay, such as sapphire (Al2O3) which is being considered as a structural component for the field cage in the nEXO detector. Sapphire is resilient to most acids making inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) difficult. NAA of sapphire is also challenging due to the side activities produced by the matrix and its impurities. We have developed a new counting scheme for NAA which makes use of gamma cascades emitted by 239Np, the neutron activation product of 238U. We found that the new counting scheme would improve the detection limit of 238U in sapphire by about a factor of 8 compared to the usual single-γ counting scheme. In this talk, I will discuss the new counting scheme and the statistical analysis that determined its detection limit. |
Saturday, April 9, 2022 12:33PM - 12:45PM |
B14.00010: Update on the LEGEND-200 experiment Rebecca M Carney Building on the expertise of the GERDA and MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR experiments, the Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless double-beta Decay (LEGEND) collaboration is in the process of constructing the first of a two-phased experimental program, LEGEND-200, at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. LEGEND-200 will have a design half-life sensitivity to neutrinoless double-beta decay, T1/20ν, exceeding 1.4E27 years, potentially revealing the fundamental nature of the neutrino as either a Dirac or Majorana particle. This talk will give an overview and update of LEGEND-200 installation and testing that is ongoing, moving towards commissioning in 2022. |
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