Bulletin of the American Physical Society
Fall 2022 Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 67, Number 17
Thursday–Sunday, October 27–30, 2022; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA; New Orleans, Louisiana
Session KD: Mini-Symposium: The Physics of Double Beta Decay - Detectors for Fundamental Physics |
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Chair: Mickey Chiu, Brookhaven National Laboratory Room: Hyatt Regency Hotel Celestin B |
Saturday, October 29, 2022 10:30AM - 10:42AM |
KD.00001: Using ultra-clean conditions of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR to measure unobserved 180mTa decay Samuel J Schleich, Ralph Massarczyk, Samuel Meijer, Cabot-Ann Christofferson The decay of the nuclear isomer 180mTa has yet to be observed as it has an expected half-life of over 1017 years. The conditions necessary to detect such a rare event exist only in ultra-clean, radio-silent detectors, such as the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR. The uniqueness of this isomer arises from the nature of its stability: the 180mTa state is more stable than its ground state as the large spin difference between the two states suppresses a direct deexcitation. Therefore, its decay is spin-suppressed. By recording the decay of 180mTa, more accurate nuclear models can be created. At the same time, the system can be used to search for dark matter candidates that couple to the nucleus; such a coupling would cause a forced deexcitation. If this deexcitation were not to be observed, current dark matter models could be further constrained. We present an overview of the experimental setup, the installation process, and updates from the recent data taking. |
Saturday, October 29, 2022 10:42AM - 10:54AM |
KD.00002: An exotic dark matter search with the Majorana Demonstrator Clint Wiseman With its excellent energy resolution and ultra-low backgrounds, the high-purity germanium detectors in the Majorana Demonstrator enable several searches for beyond the Standard Model physics ranging from the primary neutrinoless double beta decay search to searches for several classes of exotic dark matter models. Many of these dark matter models predict a peaked signature in an energy spectrum, which can be clearly resolved by germanium detectors. The Majorana detectors were operated in a low-background shield at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, and our search utilizes the 1–100 keV region of a 37 kg-year exposure collected between May 2016 and November 2019. In this talk, we present new experimental limits for keV-scale sterile neutrino dark matter, fermionic dark matter absorption, sub-GeV dark matter 3-2 body scattering, and bosonic dark matter. |
Saturday, October 29, 2022 10:54AM - 11:06AM |
KD.00003: Test of Quantum Mechanics with the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: Pauli Exclusion Principle and Electric Charge Conservation Jose M Lopez, In Wook Kim The Majorana Demonstrator is an array of p-type, point-contact Ge detectors searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in Ge-76. Additional physics searches are performed, including tests of electric charge conservation (ECC) and Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP). The ECC was tested by searching for the decay of the lightest charged lepton: an electron. The limit established by Majorana has improved by an order of magnitude over the previous best limit. The PEP was tested by searching for two types of PEP-violating processes involving a forbidden transition in a Ge atomic system. A search for PEP violation involving an electron introduced into the system by electron/positron pair production (classified as type I) in Majoranacalibration data has established the best limit from a terrestrial experiment. A second search involving a forbidden transition with a previously interacting electron (type III) using low background data has set the best limit in Ge. This talk will present new results from these searches. |
Saturday, October 29, 2022 11:06AM - 11:18AM |
KD.00004: A Search for Lorentz and CPT Violation with the Full EXO-200 Dataset Jonathan M Echevers Neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay is currently one of the most compelling searches in particle physics. If found, it would imply the existence of Majorana fermions and lepton number violation, both new physics beyond the Standard Model. The EXO-200 experiment consisted of a time projection chamber (TPC) with 200 kg of enriched liquid xenon (LXe) optimized to search for 0νββ of 136Xe. Data acquisition took place from 2011 to the end of 2018, with a total exposure of 234.1kg·yr. We found no statistically significant evidence for 0νββ, leading to a lower limit on the half-life of 3.5×1025 yr at the 90% confidence level. In addition, the ultra-low background necessary for this search provides a unique opportunity to probe other exotic processes, such as Lorentz and CPT violation, predicted by the Standard Model extension (SME) framework. This presents itself in double beta decay as a spectral perturbation due to neutrino coupling with an SME Lorentz-violating tensor field. The first search for this process was published in 2016 using a subset of the EXO-200 dataset. In this talk, we will present the analysis and status of an updated search using the full EXO-200 dataset with lower energy thresholds and improved systematic uncertainties. |
Saturday, October 29, 2022 11:18AM - 11:30AM |
KD.00005: Progress Towards Low Energy Analysis Techniques for the CUORE Experiment Rebecca E Kowalski The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is a tonne-scale bolometer located at Gran Sasso National Laboratories in Assergi, Italy. To date, CUORE has collected over 1000 kg yr of exposure. The energy spectrum of CUORE is typically optimized to search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of Te-130. To utilize the entire available energy spectrum, we can optimize the selection of usable physics events at lower energies to improve sensitivity for analyses with signals at energies of less than 100 keV. We discuss the development of new low energy tools, and the study of the resulting data quality for use in exotic low energy searches beyond neutrinoless double-beta decay for the CUORE experiment. |
Saturday, October 29, 2022 11:30AM - 11:42AM |
KD.00006: Investigation of Baryon Number violation with CUORE Vivek Sharma The conservation of baryon number in the Standard Model originates from an empirical symmetry and does not derive from first principles. Discovery of this symmetry breaking would have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the universe, in particular the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry. A hypothesized process that can violate baryon number is the tri-nucleon decay, which involves three nucleons in a nucleus decaying simultaneously. In cases where the resulting daughter nucleus is unstable, the subsequent decay radiation can be searched for as evidence of the progenitor tri-nucleon decay. We discuss a search for tri-nucleon decay of 130Te with CUORE using the delayed decay of expected daughter nuclei. We will present the search signatures, the associated backgrounds, and the analysis techniques employed. |
Saturday, October 29, 2022 11:42AM - 11:54AM |
KD.00007: A Search for Solar Axions with CUORE Samantha Pagan The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is an array of 988 TeO2 crystal calorimeters currently operating at Gran Sasso National Laboratory. CUORE’s primary physics goal is to search for the neutrinoless double-beta of 130Te. As a low background experiment with good energy resolution and high exposure, CUORE has the potential to perform multiple rare-event searches that occur in a lower energy region of interest below 100 keV, including searches for solar axions and Axion Like Particles (ALPs). This talk will discuss the development of low energy analysis tools and the prospects of performing a solar axion search using CUORE. |
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