Related papers: Cosmogenic activation in double beta decay experim…
Neutrinoless double beta decay is the only process known so far able to test the neutrino intrinsic nature: its experimental observation would imply that the lepton number is violated by two units and prove that neutrinos have a Majorana…
Reactions between atomic nuclei are measured in great detail in terrestrial laboratory experiments; transferring and extrapolating this knowledge to how the same reactions act within cosmic environments presents major challenges.…
The relevant interaction energies for astrophysical radiative capture reactions are very low, much below the repulsive Coulomb barrier. This leads to low cross sections, low counting rates in $\gamma$-ray detectors, and therefore the need…
The majority of the matter in the universe is still unidentified and under investigation by both direct and indirect means. Many experiments searching for the recoil of dark-matter particles off target nuclei in underground laboratories…
Reaction measurements on fission products are being planned at both Argonne National Lab and at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. These indirect experiments produce specific short-lived nuclei via beta decay, and the subsequent neutron…
Underground argon (UAr) with lower cosmogenic activities of $^{39}Ar$ and $^{42}Ar$ has been planned as a detector in detecting scintillation light and charge collection using time projection chambers for dark matter searches and as a veto…
Ambient radiation background contributed by the penetrating cosmic ray particles and the radionuclides present in the rock materials have been measured at an underground laboratory located inside a mine at 555 m depth. The laboratory is…
During the last few decades, rare isotope beam facilities have provided unique data for studying the properties of nuclides located far from the beta-stability line. Such nuclei are often accompanied by exotic structures and radioactive…
Material screening for identifying low-energy electron emitters and alpha-decaying isotopes is now a prerequisite for rare-event searches (e.g., dark-matter direct detection and neutrinoless double-beta decay) for which surface…
We present a technique for separating nuclear double beta decay ($\beta\beta$-decay) events from background neutrino interactions due to $^{8}$B decays in the sun. This background becomes dominant in a kiloton-scale liquid-scintillator…
Double beta plus decay is a rare nuclear disintegration process. Difficulties in its measurement arise from suppressed decay probabilities, experimentally challenging decay signatures and low natural abundances of suitable candidate nuclei.…
We analyze the possibility of detection of cosmological relic neutrinos via neutrino capture on beta decaying nuclei. This reaction has no threshold in neutrino energy, which is crucial for searching for relic neutrinos possessing very low…
The thesis describes the experimental setup designed to study the decay spectrum of 106Cd, a candidate for positive double-$\beta$ decay and the Monte Carlo simulation used to estimate the background expected in 1 year of measurements.
We investigate several Pb$(n,n'\gamma$) and Ge$(n,n'\gamma$) reactions. We measure $\gamma$-ray production from Pb$(n,n'\gamma$) reactions that can be a significant background for double-beta decay experiments which use lead as a massive…
Neutrino nature and absolute mass scale are major questions in particle physics which cannot be addressed by the present neutrino oscillation program. To answer these two questions, several neutrinoless double beta decay experiments are…
Solar neutrinos interact within double-beta decay (\BB) detectors and contribute to backgrounds for \BB\ experiments. Background contributions due to charge-current solar neutrino interactions with \BB\ nuclei of $^{76}$Ge, $^{82}$Se,…
Experiments using nuclei to probe new physics beyond the Standard Model, such as neutrinoless $\beta\beta$ decay searches testing whether neutrinos are their own antiparticle, and direct detection experiments aiming to identify the nature…
Neutrinoless double beta decay belongs to the most sensitive tools for the search of new physics beyond the standard model. The recent half life limit of the Heidelberg-Moscow experiment implies restrictive bounds on the absolute mass scale…
Two neutrino double $\beta$ decay can create irremovable background even in high energy resolution detectors searching for neutrinoless double $\beta$ decay due to random coincidence of $2\nu2\beta$ events in case of poor time resolution.…
Searches of neutrinoless double-beta decay require information on the value of the nuclear matrix elements that rule the process to plan and interpret experiments. At present, however, even the matrix elements obtained with the most…