The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would determine whether the neutrino is a Majorana particle and provide information on the absolute scale of neutrino mass. The MAJORANA Collaboration is constructing the DEMONSTRATOR, an array of germanium detectors, to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76Ge. The DEMONSTRATOR will contain 40 kg of germanium; up to 30 kg will be enriched to 86% in 76Ge. The DEMONSTRATOR will be deployed deep underground in an ultra-low-background shielded environment. Operation of the DEMONSTRATOR aims to determine whether a future tonne-scale germanium experiment can achieve a background goal of one count per tonne-year in a 4-keV region of interest around the 76Ge neutrinoless double-beta decay Q-value of 2039 keV.
Revised: July 27, 2015 |
Published: September 28, 2012
Citation
Schubert A.G., E. Aguayo, F.T. Avignone, C. Zhang, H.O. Back, A.S. Barabash, and M. Bergevin, et al. 2012.The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: A Search for Neutrinoless Double-beta Decay of Germanium-76. In 91th Particles and Nuclei International Conference (PANIC11), July 24-29, 2011, Cambridge, Massachusetts. AIP Conference Proceedings, edited by SG Steadman, GSF Stephans and FE Taylor, 1441, Article No. 480. Melville, New York:American Institute of Physics.PNNL-SA-101296.doi:10.1063/1.3700592