J.J. Gómez-Cadenas

The search for neutrinoless double beta decay

In the last two decades the search for neutrinoless double beta decay has evolved into one of the highest priorities for understanding neutrinos and the origin of mass. The main reason for this paradigm shift has been the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which clearly established the existence of massive neutrinos. An additional motivation for conducting such searches comes from the existence of an unconfirmed, but not refuted, claim of evidence for neutrinoless double decay in

First proof of topological signature in high pressure xenon gas with electroluminescence amplification

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Measurement of inclusive charged current interactions on carbon in a few-GeV neutrino beam

. As a consequence, a new generation of experiments, employing different detection techniques and

Initial results of NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment

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Sensitivity of NEXT-100 to neutrinoless double beta decay

isotopes, is being actively promoted by experimental groups across the world. In addition, nuclear theorists are making remarkable progress in the calculation of the neutrinoless double beta decay nuclear matrix elements, thus eliminating a substantial part of the theoretical uncertainties affecting the particle physics interpretation of this process. In this report, we review the main aspects of the double beta decay process and some of the most relevant experiments. The picture that emerges is one where searching for neutrinoless double beta decay is recognized to have both far-reaching theoretical implications and promising prospects for experimental observation in the near future.

Primary and secondary scintillation measurements in a Xenon Gas Proportional Scintillation Counter

A bstractThe NEXT experiment aims to observe the neutrinoless double beta decay of 136Xe in a high-pressure xenon gas TPC using electroluminescence (EL) to amplify the signal from ionization. One of the main advantages of this technology is the possibility to reconstruct the topology of events with energies close to Qββ. This paper presents the first demonstration that the topology provides extra handles to reject background events using data obtained with the NEXT-DEMO prototype.Single electrons resulting from the interactions of 22Na 1275 keV gammas and electronpositron pairs produced by conversions of gammas from the 228Th decay chain were used to represent the background and the signal in a double beta decay. These data were used to develop algorithms for the reconstruction of tracks and the identification of the energy deposited at the end-points, providing an extra background rejection factor of 24.3 ± 1.4 (stat.)%, while maintaining an efficiency of 66.7 ± 1.% for signal events.

Radiopurity control in the NEXT-100 double beta decay experiment: procedures and initial measurements

The SciBooNE Collaboration reports a measurement of inclusive charged current interactions of muon neutrinos on carbon with an average energy of 0.8 GeV using the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam. We compare our measurement with two neutrino interaction simulations: NEUT and NUANCE. The charged current interaction rates (product of flux and cross section) are extracted by fitting the muon kinematics, with a precision of 6-15% for the energy dependent and 3% for the energy integrated analyses. We also extract CC inclusive interaction cross sections from the observed rates, with a precision of 10-30% for the energy dependent and 8% for the energy integrated analyses. This is the first measurement of the CC inclusive cross section on carbon around 1 GeV. These results can be used to convert previous SciBooNE cross section ratio measurements to absolute cross section values.

Ionization and scintillation response of high-pressure xenon gas to alpha particles

This work was supported by the following agencies and institutions: the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of Spain under grants CONSOLIDER-Ingenio 2010 CSD2008-0037 (CUP) and FPA2009-13697-C04-04; the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231; and the Portuguese FCT and FEDER through the program COMPETE, project PTDC/FIS/103860/2008. J. Renner (LBNL) acknowledges the support of a US DOE NNSA Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship under contract no. DE-FC52-08NA28752.

Characterization of a medium size Xe/TMA TPC instrumented with microbulk Micromegas, using low-energy gamma-rays

A bstractNEXT-100 is an electroluminescent high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay of 136Xe. The detector possesses two features of great value for 0νββ searches: energy resolution better than 1% FWHM at the Q value of 136Xe and track reconstruction for the discrimination of signal and background events. This combination results in excellent sensitivity, as discussed in this paper. Material-screening measurements and a detailed Monte Carlo detector simulation predict a background rate for NEXT-100 of at most 4 × 10−4 counts keV−1 kg−1 yr−1. Accordingly, the detector will reach a sensitivity to the 0νββ-decay half-life of 2.8 × 1025 years (90% CL) for an exposure of 100 kg·year, or 6.0 × 1025 years after a run of 3 effective years.

SiPMs coated with TPB: coating protocol and characterization for NEXT

NEXT is a new experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a 100 kg radio-pure high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC. The detector requires excellent energy resolution, which can be achieved in a Xe TPC with electroluminescence readout. Hamamatsu R8520-06SEL photomultipliers are good candidates for the scintillation readout. The performance of this photomultiplier, used as VUV photosensor in a gas proportional scintillation counter, was investigated. Initial results for the detection of primary and secondary scintillation produced as a result of the interaction of 5.9 keV X-rays in gaseous xenon, at room temperature and at pressures up to 3 bar, are presented. An energy resolution of 8.0% was obtained for secondary scintillation produced by 5.9 keV X-rays. No significant variation of the primary scintillation was observed for different pressures (1, 2 and 3 bar) and for electric fields up to 0.8 V cm−1 torr−1 in the drift region, demonstrating negligible recombination luminescence. A primary scintillation yield of 81 ± 7 photons was obtained for 5.9 keV X-rays, corresponding to a mean energy of 72 ± 6 eV to produce a primary scintillation photon in xenon.