English

Demonstration of Single Barium Ion Sensitivity for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay using Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging

Instrumentation and Detectors 2018-04-04 v3 High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Experiment

Abstract

A new method to tag the barium daughter in the double beta decay of 136^{136}Xe is reported. Using the technique of single molecule fluorescent imaging (SMFI), individual barium dication (Ba++^{++}) resolution at a transparent scanning surface has been demonstrated. A single-step photo-bleach confirms the single ion interpretation. Individual ions are localized with super-resolution (\sim2~nm), and detected with a statistical significance of 12.9~σ\sigma over backgrounds. This lays the foundation for a new and potentially background-free neutrinoless double beta decay technology, based on SMFI coupled to high pressure xenon gas time projection chambers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.04782,
  title  = {Demonstration of Single Barium Ion Sensitivity for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay using Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging},
  author = {A. D. McDonald and B. J. P. Jones and D. R. Nygren and C. Adams and V. Alvarez and C. D. R. Azevedo and J. M. Benlloch-Rodrıguez and F. I. G. M. Borges and A. Botas and S. Carcel and J. V. Carrion and S. Cebrian and C. A. N. Conde and J. Dıaz and M. Diesburg and J. Escada and R. Esteve and R. Felkai and L. M. P. Fernandes and P. Ferrario and A. L. Ferreira and E. D. C. Freitas and A. Goldschmidt and J. J. Gomez-Cadenas and D. Gonzalez-Dıaz and R. M. Gutierrez and R. Guenette and K. Hafidi and J. Hauptman and C. A. O. Henriques and A. I. Hernandez and J. A. Hernando Morata and V. Herrero and S. Johnston and L. Labarga and A. Laing and P. Lebrun and I. Liubarsky and N. Lopez-March and M. Losada and J. Martın-Albo and G. Martınez-Lema and A. Martınez and F. Monrabal and C. M. B. Monteiro and F. J. Mora and L. M. Moutinho and J. Munoz Vidal and M. Musti and M. Nebot-Guinot and P. Novella and B. Palmeiro and A. Para and J. Perez and M. Querol and J. Repond and J. Renner and S. Riordan and L. Ripoll and J. Rodrıguez and L. Rogers and F. P. Santos and J. M. F. dos Santos and A. Simon and C. Sofka and M. Sorel and T. Stiegler and J. F. Toledo and J. Torrent and Z. Tsamalaidze and J. F. C. A. Veloso and R. Webb and J. T. White and N. Yahlali},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.04782},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Accepted by PRL