While scientists at CERN and other particle accelerators around the world explore the boundaries of high energy physics, the Majorana project investigates the other end of the spectrum with its extremely sensitive, low background, low energy detector. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR aims to detect neutrinoless double beta decay (0?ßß), a rare theoretical process in which two neutrons decay into two protons and two electrons, without the emission of the two antineutrinos that are a product of a normal double beta decay. This process is only possible if – and therefore a detection would prove — the neutrino is a Majorana particle, meaning that it is its own antiparticle [Aaselth et al. 2004] . The existence of such a decay would also disprove lepton conservation and give information about the neutrino's mass.
Revised: March 1, 2013 |
Published: August 25, 2012