The COBRA demonstrator at the LNGS underground laboratory

Abstract

The COBRA demonstrator, a prototype for a large-scale experiment searching for neutrinoless double beta-decay, was built at the underground laboratory Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. It consists of an array of 64 monolithic, calorimetric CdZnTe semiconductor detectors with a coplanar-grid design and a total mass of 380g. It is used to investigate the experimental challenges faced when operating CdZnTe detectors in low-background mode, to identify potential background sources and to show the long-term stability of the detectors. The first data-taking period started in 2011 with a subset of the detectors, while the demonstrator was completed in November 2013. To date, more than 250kg d of data have been collected. This paper describes technical details of the experimental setup and the hardware components.

8 pages, 10 figures, submitted to NIM A

References in corpus (6)

• Nuclear Structure Aspects of the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
• First results on double beta decay modes of Cd, Te and Zn isotopes with the COBRA experiment
• Results of a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay using the COBRA demonstrator
• Experimental study of double beta decay modes using a CdZnTe detector array
• An Investigation into the 113-Cd Beta Decay Spectrum using a CdZnTe Array
• Pulse-shape discrimination of surface events in CdZnTe detectors for the COBRA experiment

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Status and Future of Nuclear Matrix Elements for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay: A Review
• Toward the discovery of matter creation with neutrinoless double-beta decay
• Neutrinoless Double-Electron Capture
• Results of a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay using the COBRA demonstrator
• Quenching of $g_{\mathrm{A}}$ deduced from the $\beta$-spectrum shape of ${}^{113}$Cd measured with the COBRA experiment
• Large-$N_c$ analysis of two-nucleon neutrinoless double beta decay and charge-independence-breaking contact terms
• Confirmation of $g_{\mathrm{A}}$ quenching using the revised spectrum-shape method for the analysis of the ${}^{113}$Cd $\beta$-decay as measured with the COBRA demonstrator
• Partial muon capture rates in $A=3$ and $A=6$ nuclei with chiral effective field theory
• Long-Term Stability of Underground Operated CZT Detectors Based on the Analysis of Intrinsic ${}^{113}$Cd β${}^{-}$-Decay
• Characterization of a large CdZnTe coplanar quad-grid semiconductor detector
• Experimental Aspects of Geoneutrino Detection: Status and Perspectives
• Suppression of alpha-induced lateral surface events in the COBRA experiment using CdZnTe detectors with an instrumented guard-ring electrode
• The Dortmund Low Background Facility - Low-Background Gamma Ray Spectrometry with an Artificial Overburden