July 31, 2015
Conference Paper

Analysis techniques for background rejection at the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR

Abstract

The MAJORANA Collaboration is constructing the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, an ultra-low background, 40-kg modular HPGe detector array to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in 76Ge. In view of the next generation of tonne-scale Ge-based 0nbb-decay searches that will probe the neutrino mass scale in the inverted-hierarchy region, a major goal of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is to demonstrate a path forward to achieving a background rate at or below 1 count/tonne/year in the 4 keV region of interest around the Q-value at 2039 keV. The background rejection techniques to be applied to the data include cuts based on data cleaning, pulse shape analysis, event coincidences, and time correlations. The Point Contact design of the DEMONSTRATOR's germanium detectors allows for significant reduction of gamma background.

Revised: June 7, 2018 | Published: July 31, 2015

Citation

Cuesta C., N. Abgrall, I.J. Arnquist, F.T. Avignone, C.X. Baldenegro-Barrera, A.S. Barabash, and F. Bertrand, et al. 2015. Analysis techniques for background rejection at the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR. In Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop in Low Radioactivity Techniques (LRT 2015), March 18-20, 2015, Seattle, WA. AIP Conference Proceedings, edited by JL Orrell, 1672, Article No. 140006. College Park, Maryland:American Institute of Physics. PNNL-SA-111894. doi:10.1063/1.4928022