Bulletin of the American Physical Society
6th Joint Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics and the Physical Society of Japan
Sunday–Friday, November 26–December 1 2023; Hawaii, the Big Island
Session E12: Minisymposium: Low Energy Neutrinos III: Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay III & Detector Technology I |
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Chair: Julieta Gruszko, University of North Carolina Room: Hilton Waikoloa Village Kona 5 |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 7:00PM - 7:15PM |
E12.00001: Suppression of 2νββ pile-up events in CUPID using light detectors. Vivek Singh CUPID (CUORE Upgrade with Particle ID) is a proposed tonne-scale 0νββ experiment that will use arrays of low-temperature calorimeters to probe the Majorana nature of neutrinos. CUPID will do background rejection by reading phonon and photon signals simultaneously from a scintillating Lithium Molybdate (Li2100MoO4) crystal. The pile-up of 100Mo ordinary 2νββ decay events in a single crystal will contribute to a non-negligible background in the region of interest. It cannot be rejected based on timing information from the massive LMO crystals since their response is slow. CUPID plans to use faster light detectors to reject the pile-up events based on pulse shape analysis. In this talk, I will review the two key technologies, (i) Neganov-Luke amplified phonon detectors with NTD-Ge sensors which provide excellent SNR, and (ii) Superconducting transition-edge sensors which have excellent timing resolution, that the CUPID collaboration has pursued. I will also briefly discuss how it may be necessary to combine both technologies to achieve the background goal for CUPID-1T, a next-next-generation experiment. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 7:15PM - 7:30PM |
E12.00002: Transition-edge sensors with multiplexing readout for the CUPID experiment Chiara Capelli Low-temperature calorimeters have been extensively used in the search for rare phenomena, such as neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter. Detector sensitivity has advanced to the point that the experimental sensitivity is limited by background radioactivity. To improve the overall sensitivity of an experiment, a technique has been proposed that involves reading out the phonon and photon signals simultaneously from a scintillating or a Cherenkov light-emitting crystal. In this work, we present the development of sensitive optical-photon detectors using a novel Iridium/Platinum bilayer superconducting transition-edge-sensor (TES) on a large area dielectric wafer (Si/Ge), acting as a photon absorber. These detectors are suitable for next-generation calorimetric experiments requiring thousands of channels. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 7:30PM - 7:45PM |
E12.00003: Neutron Transmutation Doped (NTD) Germanium Thermistors for CUPID Alexey Drobizhev CUPID—the CUORE Upgrade with Particle Identification—is a next-generation search for the neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of 100Mo utilizing a ton-scale array of scintillating Li2MoO4 bolometers enriched in the isotope of interest. Operated at ~10 mK temperatures, these detectors are able to measure absorbed particles' energy with very high resolution via their thermal signatures. Secondary bolometers with semiconductor wafer absorbers detect scintillation light from the Li2MoO4 crystals, allowing for active background discrimination through particle identification. Each primary and secondary bolometer (~4000 readout channels) is instrumented with a neutron transmutation doped (NTD) Ge temperature sensor, whose electrical resistance depends on temperature as R(T) = R0e√(T0 /T) at sub-Kelvin temperatures, with target values of R0 ≈ 1 – 2 Ω and T0 ≈ 4K giving a sensitivity of ~ 0.3 – 1 MΩ/μK. These parameter values and ultra-low operating temperatures necessitate doping the high purity Ge (HPGe) material to a net dopant concentration of ~1017 cm–3 with a very high level of uniformity, which we achieve via neutron transmutation doping: HPGe wafers are irradiated in the MITR-II nuclear reactor at nominal doses of ~1018 n/cm3. In this talk, I present the ongoing research and development of novel NTD geometries for the CUPID light detectors, particularly 1×1×1 mm3 die NTDs, and their characterization. These chips' size and dimensions reduce their heat capacity and make them suitable for large-volume production and innovative mounting arrangements. I also discuss the performance of NTDs in the Baseline Design Prototype Tower (BDPT) and the ramp-up of the CUPID NTD mass production program at the Semiconductor Detector Laboratory (SDL) at LBNL. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 7:45PM - 8:00PM |
E12.00004: Latest advances in barium tagging technology with the NEXT experiment Krishan Mistry NEXT is an experimental program searching for neutrinoless double beta decay (0nuBB) using high-pressure gaseous time projection chamber technology with enriched xenon. The latest experiment in the program, NEXT-100, is currently being constructed at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc in the Spanish Pyrenees and will perform a competitive search for 0nuBB utilizing excellent topological reconstruction and energy measurement at 1% FWHM at 2.5 MeV. In order to reach sensitivities towards 1030 years in the 0nuBB half-life, which is several orders of magnitude higher than current best limits, future, larger, detectors will require new methods to reduce the backgrounds to negligible levels, the NEXT collaboration is actively working towards the development of novel technology to tag the barium daughter ion from the decay. If realized, this technique could enable a background-free 0nuBB search. This talk will present the latest advances in barium tagging being developed by the NEXT collaboration. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 8:00PM - 8:15PM |
E12.00005: Origin-X: A Ktonne Scale Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Experiment with 1030yr Half-life Sensitivity. Mike Heffner Large detectors employing xenon are a leading technology in existing and planned searches for new physics, including searches for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) and dark matter. While upcoming detectors will employ target masses of a ton or more, further extending gas- or liquid-phase Xe detectors to the ktonne scale would enable extremely sensitive next-generation searches for rare phenomena. The key challenge to extending this technology to detectors well beyond the tonne scale is the acquisition of the xenon itself. We describe the motivation for extending xenon time-projection chambers to the kton scale and possible avenues for xenon acquisition. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 8:15PM - 8:30PM |
E12.00006: Development of Laser Isotope Separation (LIS) for 48Ca toward the Study of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay by CANDLES Anawat Rittirong, Saori Umehara, Kenji Matsuoka, Sei Yoshida, Izumi Ogawa, Tasuku Hiraiwa, Junya Nakajima, Ren Yuhaku, Masashi Tozawa, Hideaki Niki, Shigeki Tokita, Masahiro Uemukai, Noriaki Miyanaka CANDLES used 48Ca to study the neutrinoless double beta decay (0vββ) to explore the mystery of the universe, such as lepton number violation, Majorana neutrino, and matter anti-matter asymmetry. The recent CANDLES III experiment achieved a lower limit on the half-life of 0vββ decay at 5.6 × 1022 years and the effective Majorana neutrino mass of ≤ 2.9 − 16 eV at 90% C.L. However, producing large quantities of 48Ca is challenging. Utilizing laser isotope separation (LIS) is crucial in overcoming this challenge and enabling the mass production necessary for the CANDLES study of 0vββ. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 8:30PM - 8:45PM |
E12.00007: Alpha quenching in liquid scintillator neutrino detectors Ziping Ye Liquid scintillator has been widely used in neutrino detectors. Understanding its energy response is critical for the success of current and future neutrino observatories like SNO+, JUNO, Theia, etc. Conventional modeling of alpha particle signals in liquid scintillator is based on the Birks' law, which uses a single Birks' constant to describe the quenching of scintillation light from alpha particles. Here we present a study with the SNO+ scintillator phase data using an energy-dependent Birks' parameterization to improve the model. The uranium and thorium decay chains have multiple alphas with quenched energies ranging from ~ 0.4 to ~ 1.2 MeV, providing a range of energies to fit with the improved model. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 8:45PM - 9:00PM |
E12.00008: Water-based Liquid Scintillator Development Minfang Yeh The water-based liquid scintillator (WbLS) is a new detection medium that has multiple applications in neutrino physics and other rare-event detections. The WbLS acts as the primary detector target allowing flexible detector design, minimum chemical hazard, and adjustable scintillation light yield to meet the performance requirements for the next-generation particle physics experiments. In addition, the separation of scintillation and Cherenkov events enables directional reconstruction and enhances low energy efficiency. The WbLS also provides a new approach loading isotopes including inorganic metallic ions into the organic scintillator liquid to enhance detector sensitivity and expand physics reach for a wide range of particle interactions. This talk will report on the feasibility development, in terms of formulation, characterization, and production, for kiloton-scale WbLS deployments using the benchtop and prototyping study at BNL. The application of Gd-water purification system and the nanofiltration system for in-situ WbLS circulation will also be discussed. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:00PM - 9:15PM |
E12.00009: Results from 1-ton WbLS testbed at BNL Guang Yang The large-scale Water-based Liquid Scintillator (WbLS) detector is a new opportunity for the neutrino community to accomplish competent long-baseline neutrino oscillation and unprecedented low-energy neutrino measurements. Several table-top WbLS detection systems have been implemented at BNL and LBNL. It is critical to advance further with a mid-scale demonstrator to understand and tune the WbLS property and stability. A 1-ton detector located at BNL instrumentation building, equipped with 58 PMTs (30 on the bottom and 28 on the wall) and muon scopes, was built in 2022. Various liquid materials were developed and filled sequentially. The performance and stability of WbLS for cosmic muons and an alpha source were measured. In this presentation, the latest experiment's status and the physics results will be shown.
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Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:15PM - 9:30PM |
E12.00010: Introducing Eos: a hybrid neutrino detection technology demonstrator Leon Pickard Hybrid detector technology has the potential to revolutionize next-generation neutrino experimentation. With a powerful design capable of utilizing both Cherenkov and scintillation signatures simultaneously for advanced particle detection, hybrid detection provides the exciting prospect to use large-scale neutrino detectors, such as THEIA, to answer unknown questions within the Standard Model. What is the neutrino mass hierarchy? Is CP-violated in the leptonic sector? Do Majorana Fermions exist? Eos is a 20-ton technology demonstrator currently under construction in Berkeley, which aims to characterize novel technology in an integrated fashion in order to evaluate the event reconstruction potential afforded by these advances. Eos will test novel scintillators, including water-based liquid scintillator (WbLS), fast photon detectors, and spectral sorting using dichroicons. In demonstrating the capability of hybrid detection, Eos will help push the frontiers for next generation neutrino physics. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:30PM - 9:45PM |
E12.00011: Cherenkov and Scintillation in an optical LAr neutrino detector Logan Lebanowski, Joshua Klein, Gabriel D Orebi Gann The continued use and development of liquid argon, liquid scintillator, and water Cherenkov detectors can be leveraged to construct highly capable and well understood detectors sensitive to a diverse range of physics. In particular, ongoing efforts to distinguish Cherenkov and scintillation photons in organic liquid scintillators (LS) can be more directly achieved in liquid argon (LAr). In contrast to LS, LAr scintillates narrowly around 128 nm, leaving the broad Cherenkov spectrum uncontaminated above this wavelength. These Cherenkov photons are readily detected by common devices such as PMTs while the scintillation photons can be detected with the same devices upon coating with a wavelength shifter like PTP or TPB. From a simulation of a 50/50 distribution of TPB-coated/uncoated PMTs, the number of Cherenkov photons detected with high purity by only uncoated PMTs can be as high as modern water Cherenkov detectors and the number of scintillation photons detected can be as high as modern LS detectors, contributing roughly 3% (0.5%) to the energy resolution at 1 (50) MeV. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:45PM - 10:00PM |
E12.00012: Neutrino Heavy Water Detector at the SNS Yuri V Efremenko COHERENT collaboration at the Spallation Neutrino Source (SNS) at ORNL utilizing intensive low energy neutrino flux to measure various neutrino interactions. With the focus to study Coherent Elastic Neutrino Scattering (CEvNS). Precise measurement of the CEvNS can test prediction of the standard model (SM) and look for hints of a new physics beyond SM. Preset limitation for the experiment is knowledge of the neutrino flax which is based on theoretical calculations and presently estimated to have accuracy of 10%. We will describe a new heavy water detector which was recently commissioned at the SNS with the goal to calibrate neutrino flux with accuracy up to 2-3%. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 10:00PM - 10:15PM |
E12.00013: Making low radioactivity connections Richard Saldanha, Isaac Arnquist, Maria Laura diVacri, Nicole Rocco, Tyler Schlieder Flexible printed cables and circuitry based on copper-polyimide materials are widely used in experiments looking for rare events, such as neutrinoless double beta decay, due to their unique electrical and mechanical characteristics. However, copper-polyimide flexible cables contain high levels of 238U, 232Th, and 40K, which can be a significant source of radioactive background for many current and next-generation ultralow background detectors. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 10:15PM - 10:30PM |
E12.00014: Calculating The Cherenkov Radiation Emitted By Low-Energy Proton In Liquid Argon (LAr) Near UV Resonance (~106.6 nm) And Comparing With Argon Scintillation Light At 128 nm. Hasan R Rahman, Matthew D Sievert, Vassili Papavassiliou Neutrino experiments using liquid argon (LAr) detectors estimate the amount of light produced by different types of particles, but only consider scintillation light, at 128 nm, ignoring Cherenkov light contributions. This research aims to theoretically compare these two contributions to the total amount of light produced between 128 – 500 nm for a proton travelling in LAr and explores how to leverage these under-utilized observables for future detector applications. |
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