Latest results of NEXT-DEMO, the prototype of the NEXT 100 double beta decay experiment

Abstract

NEXT-DEMO is a 1:4.5 scale prototype of the NEXT100 detector, a high-pressure xenon gas TPC that will search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of ${}^{136}$Xe. X-ray energy depositions produced by the de-excitation of Xenon atoms after the interaction of gamma rays from radioactive sources have been used to characterize the response of the detector obtaining the spatial calibration needed for close-to-optimal energy resolution. Our result, 5.5% FWHM at 30 keV, extrapolates to 0.6% FWHM at the Q value of ${}^{136}$Xe. Additionally, alpha decays from radon have been used to measure several detection properties and parameters of xenon gas such as electron-ion recombination, electron drift velocity, diffusion and primary scintillation light yield. Alpha spectroscopy is also used to quantify the activity of radon inside the detector, a potential source of background for most double beta decay experiments.

arXiv comment3 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Proceedings from the poster session at the 37th International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP, Valencia, Jul 2014)

References in corpus (5)

• NEXT-100 Technical Design Report (TDR). Executive Summary
• Initial results of NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment
• Ionization and scintillation response of high-pressure xenon gas to alpha particles
• Characterisation of NEXT-DEMO using xenon K${}_{\alpha }$ X-rays
• Near-Intrinsic Energy Resolution for 30 to 662 keV Gamma Rays in a High Pressure Xenon Electroluminescent TPC

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Evaluation of the Majorana Phases of a General Majorana Neutrino Mass Matrix: Testability of hierarchical Flavour Models