Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2021 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 66, Number 8
Monday–Thursday, October 11–14, 2021; Virtual; Eastern Daylight Time
Session KB: Mini-Symposium: Neutrinos and Nuclei VII: Ab Initio Methods; Double Beta Decay Backgrounds I |
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Chair: Michael Wagman, FNAL Room: Statler |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 11:30AM - 11:42AM |
KB.00001: Ab initio neutrinoless double-beta decay matrix elements Antoine Belley With neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) experiments poised to reach the ton-scale era, reliable nuclear matrix elements (NMEs), which govern the rate of the decay, are imperative. Observation of this process would at once show neutrinos to be Majorana particles, as well as potentially give the absolute mass of the neutrino, as long as the NMEs are well determined. |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 11:42AM - 11:54AM |
KB.00002: Ab initio Description of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay with the In-Medium Similarity Renormalization Group Heiko Hergert, Roland Wirth, Jiangming Yao Recently, there has been significant progress in ab initio calculations |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 11:54AM - 12:06PM |
KB.00003: Abstract Withdrawn
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021 12:06PM - 12:18PM |
KB.00004: Backgrounds to Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay in SNO+ Scintillator Fill Anthony Zummo The SNO+ experiment will search for neutrinoless double beta decay using 780 tonnes of tellurium loaded liquid scintillator. The detector is currently full with pure scintillator which can be used to understand all backgrounds not associated with the tellurium loading. Two independent analyses have been performed throughout the scintillator fill to study backgrounds in the region of interest for the future neutrinoless double beta decay search. The results of these analyses are presented. |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 12:18PM - 12:30PM |
KB.00005: Background Model Fitting for the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Anna L Reine The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment consisting of two modules containing p-type point contact germanium detectors surrounded by a graded shield and located at the 4850' level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The experiment has a leading energy resolution of 2.5 keV FWHM as well as one of the lowest backgrounds in the region of interest surrounding the double-beta decay Q-value. Background model fits to data from the DEMONSTRATOR aim to determine the sources of observed backgrounds, explain deviations between the measured background rate and assay-based predictions, and make a precision measurement of the two-neutrino double-beta decay half-life. In this talk, we present recent progress in background modeling aimed at addressing the challenges of reliably fitting a large group of simulated spectra that represent each module's components to a low background dataset. We also discuss work to quantify systematic errors due to model uncertainties, such as those associated with the dead layer profiles of the detectors. |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 12:30PM - 12:42PM |
KB.00006: Preliminary Background Modeling of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Hardware Upgrade Ethan Blalock The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The DEMONSTRATOR contains an array of 44kg of Ge detectors, of which 30 kg are enriched in the neutrinoless double-beta decay candidate isotope 76Ge. During 2020, a module of the DEMONSTRATOR was upgraded to replace its cables and connectors, to add more shielding, and to swap in 4 inverted-coaxial point contact detectors that will also be used in LEGEND-200. The Monte Carlo simulation geometry of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR was updated to the reflect the changes made during the upgrade, and new simulations were run to calculate the effect of these upgrades on the expected background contribution of the DEMONSTRATOR. The changes to the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR simulation geometry and expected background rate of the DEMONSTRATOR will be discussed. |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 12:42PM - 12:54PM |
KB.00007: Study of 13C (α, n)16O Reaction in the Calibration Data of MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Experiment Tupendra K Oli The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR experiment at the 4850’ level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD has been searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 76Ge using high purity germanium (HPGe) detectors. Data-taking with 30-kg of enriched detectors was successfully concluded in March 2021 and the natural detectors are still taking data for background studies. These HPGe detectors are calibrated with gamma rays from 228Th line sources deployed during energy calibrations. The HPGe detectors of the DEMONSTRATOR have achieved a great energy performance that extends from 1 keV to 10 MeV, including a record energy resolution of 2.5 keV FWHM at the 2039-keV Q-value. Alpha particles are also produced by the 228Th decay chains within the calibration sources, and they can induce (α, n) reactions on certain isotopes in the epoxy and plastic materials that encapsulate the line sources. In this talk, we will update the status of our investigation of 13C (α, n)16O reactions in MAJORANA calibration data based on the detection of 6.13 MeV de-excitation gammas, which are from excited 16O states produced in the (α, n) reactions. |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 12:54PM - 1:06PM |
KB.00008: Background lineshape for CUORE Vivek Sharma CUORE is one of the leading searches for neutrinoless double beta decay, a process which if discovered would show that lepton number conservation is violated and neutrinos are Majorana particles. CUORE uses an array of 988 individual TeO2 crystals operated at approximately 11 mK as both the source material and as bolometric detectors to look for this process in 130Te. It is necessary that we understand the energy response of each bolometer to maximize the sensitivity of the experiment. In this talk we describe the procedure to model the energy response of each detector. This involves characterizing the energy dependence of the detector resolution and calculating the uncertainty in energy reconstruction. We also discuss how the uncertainty in the detector response contributes to the systematic uncertainty of the neutrinoless double beta decay search. |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 1:06PM - 1:18PM |
KB.00009: Energy resolution and detector response in CUORE Ridge Liu The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is an experiment searching for neutrinoless double beta decay in a ton-scale detector, located in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS), Italy. The experiment is a highly sensitive calorimeter, maintained at millikelvin temperatures, detecting temperature fluctuations from energy deposits in TeO2 crystals. The excellent energy resolution of the bolometric detectors is critical to the search for neutrinoless double beta decay and other rare events. It may be degraded by increases in the noise. We discuss efforts to improve the energy resolution by reducing the noise from various sources, including correlation studies between the bolometric detector and seismic activity. |
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