NEXT, high-pressure xenon gas experiments for ultimate sensitivity to Majorana neutrinos

Abstract

In this paper we describe an innovative type of Time Projection Chamber (TPC), which uses high-pressure xenon gas (HPXe) and electroluminescence amplification of the ionization charge as the basis of an apparatus capable of fully reconstructing the energy and topological signature of rare events. We will discuss a specific design of such HPXe TPC, the NEXT-100 detector, that will search for neutrinoless double beta decay events using 100-150 kg of xenon enriched in the isotope Xe-136. NEXT-100 is currently under construction, after completion of an accelerated and very successful R&D period. It will be installed at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC), in Spain. The commissioning run is expected for late 2013 or early 2014. We will also present physics arguments that suggest that the HPXe technology can be extrapolated to the next-to-next generation (e.g, a fiducial mass of 1 ton of target), which will fully explore the Majorana nature of the neutrino if the mass hierarchy is inverse.

10 pages, 6 figures. Invited talk at the 14th International Workshop on Radiation Imaging Detectors (iWoRID 2012), Figueira da Foz, Coimbra (Portugal), 1-5 July 2012

References in corpus (7)

• Leptogenesis
• Phenomenology with Massive Neutrinos
• Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay in ${}^{136}$Xe with EXO-200
• Measurement of the double-βdecay half-life of ^{136}Xe with the KamLAND-Zen experiment
• The EXO-200 detector, part I: Detector design and construction
• NEXT-100 Technical Design Report (TDR). Executive Summary
• The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: A Search for Neutrinoless Double-beta Decay of Germanium-76

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Initial results of NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment
• Operation and first results of the NEXT-DEMO prototype using a silicon photomultiplier tracking array
• Radiative neutrino mass generation linked to neutrino mixing and $0\nu \beta \beta$-decay predictions
• Loop-induced Neutrino Masses: A Case Study
• Imperfect World of $\beta \beta$-decay Nuclear Data Sets?
• Double Beta Decay Experiments at Canfranc Underground Laboratory
• Backgrounds and sensitivity of the NEXT double beta decay experiment
• NEXT-DEMO: a prototype for the NEXT experiment