Canadian Contributions to the Search for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

Abstract

The search for neutrinoless double beta decay has internationally been recognized as the most promising approach to determine the Majorana nature of neutrinos. This hypothesized decay would, if observed, violate lepton number in weak interactions by two units, hence, prove the existence of physics beyond the Standard Model. Current experiments with sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta decay half lives of $10^{26}$ years did not observe such a decay and worldwide efforts are ongoing to deploy experiments with half-life sensitivities beyond $10^{28}$ years. Canadian groups have been involved in this search for more than four decades. This article summarizes the historical experimental efforts and describes current Canadian contributions to neutrinoless double beta decay searches and their theoretical interpretation.

References in corpus (35)

• The fate of hints: updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations
• Leptogenesis
• Symmetries and Strings in Field Theory and Gravity
• Status and Future of Nuclear Matrix Elements for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay: A Review
• Phase space factors for double-$\beta$ decay
• Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay in ${}^{136}$Xe with EXO-200
• Final Results of GERDA on the Search for Neutrinoless Double-$\beta$ Decay
• NuFit-6.0: Updated global analysis of three-flavor neutrino oscillations
• A nucleus-dependent valence-space approach to nuclear structure
• Ab initio predictions link the neutron skin of ${}^{208}$Pb to nuclear forces
• Toward the discovery of matter creation with neutrinoless double-beta decay
• Neutrino mass from Cosmology
• NEXO: Neutrinoless double beta decay search beyond $10^{28}$ year half-life sensitivity
• The SNO+ Experiment
• Converged ab initio calculations of heavy nuclei
• Ab initio neutrinoless double-beta decay matrix elements for 48Ca, 76Ge, and 82Se
• Coupled-cluster calculations of neutrinoless double-beta decay in ${}^{48}$Ca
• Towards complete leading-order predictions for neutrinoless double $\beta$ decay
• Characterization of the Hamamatsu VUV4 MPPCs for nEXO
• Ab initio uncertainty quantification of neutrinoless double-beta decay in ${}^{76}$Ge
• Measurement of the ${}^8$B Solar Neutrino Flux in SNO+ with Very Low Backgrounds
• Development, characterisation, and deployment of the SNO+ liquid scintillator
• Ab initio benchmarks of neutrinoless double beta decay in light nuclei with a chiral Hamiltonian
• Observation of single collisionally cooled trapped ions in a buffer gas
• Performance of novel VUV-sensitive Silicon Photo-Multipliers for nEXO
• Characterization of an Ionization Readout Tile for nEXO
• Improved search for invisible modes of nucleon decay in water with the SNO+ detector
• Evidence of Antineutrinos from Distant Reactors using Pure Water at SNO+
• A Method to Load Tellurium in Liquid Scintillator for the Study of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
• Design of a Multiple-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass-Spectrometer for Barium-tagging
• Search for MeV Electron Recoils from Dark Matter in EXO-200
• Event-by-Event Direction Reconstruction of Solar Neutrinos in a High Light-Yield Liquid Scintillator
• Search for Two-neutrino Double-Beta Decay of ${}^{136}\mathrm{Xe}$ to the $0_1^{+}$ excited state of ${}^{136}\mathrm{Ba}$ with the Complete EXO-200 Dataset
• 'Searching for a needle in a haystack;' A Ba-tagging approach for an upgraded nEXO experiment
• Ion manipulation from liquid Xe to vacuum: Ba-tagging for a nEXO upgrade and future $0\nu \beta \beta$ experiments