Related papers: Modeling of GERDA Phase II data
The GERDA experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) searches for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 76-Ge. In view of the GERDA Phase II data collection, four new 228-Th radioactive sources for the calibration of the…
Two neutrino double beta decay of $^{76}$Ge to excited states of $^{76}$Se has been studied using data from Phase I of the GERDA experiment. An array composed of up to 14 germanium detectors including detectors that have been isotopically…
We present the measurement of the two-neutrino double-$\beta$ decay rate of $^{76}$Ge performed with the GERDA Phase II experiment. With a subset of the entire GERDA exposure, 11.8 kg$\cdot$yr, the half-life of the process has been…
The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would resolve the Majorana nature of the neutrino and could provide information on the absolute scale of the neutrino mass. The initial phase of the Majorana experiment, known as the…
A low-background germanium spectrometer has been installed and is being operated in an ultra-low background shield (the Gator facility) at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy (LNGS). With an integrated rate of ~0.16 events/min in…
Neutrinoless double-beta decay searches play a major role in determining the nature of neutrinos, the existence of a lepton violating process, and the effective Majorana neutrino mass. The Majorana Collaboration proposes to assemble an…
Background of germanium and xenon detectors due to the elastic scattering of $^{8}B$ solar neutrinos on electrons have been calculated. The background is 4.6 \times $10^{-4}$ counts/(keV$\cdot t\cdot$y) that defines the sensitivity of…
The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is a planned 40 kg array of Germanium detectors intended to demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a tonne-scale experiment that will seek neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) in…
Neutrinoless double-beta decay is a hypothesized process where in some even-even nuclei it might be possible for two neutrons to simultaneously decay into two protons and two electrons without emitting neutrinos. This is possible only if…
A discovery that neutrinos are not the usual Dirac but Majorana fermions, i.e. identical to their antiparticles, would be a manifestation of new physics with profound implications for particle physics and cosmology. Majorana neutrinos would…
The GERmanium Detector Array (GERDA) experiment operated enriched high-purity germanium detectors in a liquid argon cryostat, which contains 0.33% of $^{36}$Ar, a candidate isotope for the two-neutrino double-electron capture (2$\nu$ECEC)…
The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would determine whether the neutrino is a Majorana particle and provide information on the absolute scale of neutrino mass. The MAJORANA Collaboration is constructing the DEMONSTRATOR, an…
The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{76}$Ge with two modular arrays of natural and $^{76}$Ge-enriched germanium detectors. It is located at the 4850 level of Sanford Underground Research Facility…
Nuclear double beta decay provides an extraordinarily broad potential to search for beyond Standard Model physics, probing already now the TeV scale, on which new physics should manifest itself. These possibilities are reviewed here. First,…
The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is a $^{76}$Ge-based neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) experiment. Staged at the 4850 ft level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility, the DEMONSTRATOR operates an array of high-purity p-type…
Low background experiments need a suppression of cosmogenically induced events. The GERDA experiment located at LNGS is searching for the neutrinless double beta decay of $^{76}$Ge. It is equipped with an active muon veto the main part of…
After the pioneering work of the Heidelberg-Moscow (HDM) and International Germanium Experiment (IGEX) groups, the second round of neutrinoless double-$\beta$ decay searches currently underway has or will improve the life-time limits of…
An infrastructure to characterize germanium detectors has been designed and constructed at the HADES Underground Research Laboratory, located in Mol (Belgium). Thanks to the 223m overburden of clay and sand, the muon flux is lowered by four…
The previous article about material screening for GERDA points out the importance of strict material screening and selection for radioimpurities as a key to meet the aspired background levels of the GERDA experiment. This is directly done…
The GERDA and Majorana experiments will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of germanium-76 using isotopically enriched high-purity germanium detectors. Although the experiments differ in conceptual design, they share many aspects in…