Calorimeter development for the SuperNEMO double beta decay experiment

Abstract

SuperNEMO is a double-${\hat{I}}^2$ decay experiment, which will employ the successful tracker-calorimeter technique used in the recently completed NEMO-3 experiment. SuperNEMO will implement 100 kg of double-${\hat{I}}^2$ decay isotope, reaching a sensitivity to the neutrinoless double-${\hat{I}}^2$ decay ($0\hat{I}½{\hat{I}}^2{\hat{I}}^2$) half-life of the order of $10^{26}$ yr, corresponding to a Majorana neutrino mass of 50-100 meV. One of the main goals and challenges of the SuperNEMO detector development programme has been to reach a calorimeter energy resolution, $\hat{I}”$E/E, around 3%/$sqrt(E)$(MeV) $\ddot{I}ƒ$, or 7%/$sqrt(E)$(MeV) FWHM (full width at half maximum), using a calorimeter composed of large volume plastic scintillator blocks coupled to photomultiplier tubes. We describe the R\&D programme and the final design of the SuperNEMO calorimeter that has met this challenging goal.