NvDEx-100 Conceptual Design Report
Abstract
Observing nuclear neutrinoless double beta (0vbb) decay would be a revolutionary result in particle physics. Observing such a decay would prove that the neutrinos are their own antiparticles, help to study the absolute mass of neutrinos, explore the origin of their mass, and may explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry in our universe by lepton number violation. We propose developing a time projection chamber (TPC) using high-pressure 82SeF6 gas and top-metal silicon sensors for read-out in the China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL) to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 82Se, called the NvDEx experiment. Besides being located at CJPL with the world's thickest rock shielding, NvDEx combines the advantages of the high Qbb (2.996 MeV) of 82Se and the TPC's ability to distinguish signal and background events using their different topological characteristics. This makes NvDEx unique, with great potential for low-background and high-sensitivity 0vbb searches. NvDEx-100, a NvDEx experiment phase with 100 kg of SeF6 gas, is being built, with plans to complete installation at CJPL by 2025. This report introduces 0vbb physics, the NvDEx concept and its advantages, and the schematic design of NvDEx-100, its subsystems, and background and sensitivity estimation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2304.08362,
title = {NvDEx-100 Conceptual Design Report},
author = {X. Cao and Y. Chang and K. Chen and E. Ciuffoli and L. Duan and D. Fang and C. Gao and S. K. Ghorui and P. Hu and Q. Hu and S. Huang and Z. Huang and L. Lang and Y. Li and Z. Li and T. Liang and J. Liu and C. Lu and F. Mai and Y. Mei and H. Qiu and X. Sun and X. Tang and H. Wang and Q. Wang and L. Xiao and M. Xiao and J. Xin and N. Xu and P. Yang and Y. Yang and Z. Yang and Z. Yu and D. Zhang and J. Zhang and C. Zhao and D. Zhu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.08362},
year = {2023}
}