1210.2678 (P. Finnerty et al.)

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: Progress towards showing the feasibility of a
tonne-scale 76Ge neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment    [PDF]

P. Finnerty, E. Aguayo, M. Amman, F. T. Avignone. III, A. S. Barabash, P. J. Barton, J. R. Beene, F. E. Bertrand, M. Boswell, V. Brudanin, M. Busch, Y. -D. Chan, C. D. Christofferson, J. I. Collar, D. C. Combs, R. J. Cooper, J. A. Detwiler, P. J. Doe, Yu. Efremenko, V. Egorov, H. Ejiri, S. R. Elliott, J. Esterline, J. E. Fast, N. Fields, F. M. Fraenkle, A. Galindo-Uribarri, V. M. Gehman, G. K. Giovanetti, M. P. Green, V. E. Guiseppe, K. Gusey, A. L. Hallin, R. Hazama, R. Henning, E. W. Hoppe, M. Horton, S. Howard, M. A. Howe, R. A. Johnson, K. J. Keeter, M. F. Kidd, A. Knecht, O. Kochetov, S. I. Konovalov, R. T. Kouzes, B. D. LaFerriere, J. Leon, L. E. Leviner, J. C. Loach, P. N. Luke, S. MacMullin, M. G. Marino, R. D. Martin, J. H. Merriman, M. L. Miller, L. Mizouni, M. Nomachi, J. L. Orrell, N. R. Overman, G. Perumpilly, D. G. Phillips. II, A. W. P. Poon, D. C. Radford, K. Rielage, R. G. H. Robertson, M. C. Ronquest, A. G. Schubert, T. Shima, M. Shirchenko, K. J. Snavely, D. Steele, J. Strain, V. Timkin, W. Tornow, R. L. Varner, K. Vetter, K. Vorren, J. F. Wilkerson, E. Yakushev, H. Yaver, A. R. Young, C-H. Yu. and. V. Yumatov.

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR will search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of the 76Ge isotope with a mixed array of enriched and natural germanium detectors. The observation of this rare decay would indicate the neutrino is its own anti-particle, demonstrate that lepton number is not conserved, and provide information on the absolute mass-scale of the neutrino. The DEMONSTRATOR is being assembled at the 4850 foot level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The array will be contained in a low-background environment and surrounded by passive and active shielding. The goals for the DEMONSTRATOR are: demonstrating a background rate less than 3 t$^{-1}$ y$^{-1}$ in the 4 keV region of interest (ROI) surrounding the 2039 keV 76Ge endpoint energy; establishing the technology required to build a tonne-scale germanium based double-beta decay experiment; testing the recent claim of observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay [H. V. Klapdor-Kleingrothaus and I. V. Krivosheina, Mod. Phys. Lett. A21, 1547 (2006)]; and performing a direct search for light WIMPs (3-10 GeV).

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.2678