Astroparticle Physics with a Customized Low-Background Broad Energy Germanium Detector
Abstract
The MAJORANA Collaboration is building the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, a 60 kg array of high purity germanium detectors housed in an ultra-low background shield at the Sanford Underground Laboratory in Lead, SD. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76Ge while demonstrating the feasibility of a tonne-scale experiment. It may also carry out a dark matter search in the 1-10 GeV/c^2 mass range. We have found that customized Broad Energy Germanium (BEGe) detectors produced by Canberra have several desirable features for a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment, including low electronic noise, excellent pulse shape analysis capabilities, and simple fabrication. We have deployed a customized BEGe, the MAJORANA Low-Background BEGe at Kimballton (MALBEK), in a low-background cryostat and shield at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility in Virginia. This paper will focus on the detector characteristics and measurements that can be performed with such a radiation detector in a low-background environment.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1007.3231,
title = {Astroparticle Physics with a Customized Low-Background Broad Energy Germanium Detector},
author = {MAJORANA Collaboration and C. E. Aalseth and M. Amman and F. T. Avignone and H. O. Back and A. S. Barabash and P. S. Barbeau and M. Bergevin and F. E. Bertrand and M. Boswell and V. Brudanin and W. Bugg and T. H. Burritt and M. Busch and G. Capps and Y-D. Chan and J. I. Collar and R. J. Cooper and R. Creswick and J. A. Detwiler and J. Diaz and P. J. Doe and Yu. Efremenko and V. Egorov and H. Ejiri and S. R. Elliott and J. Ely and J. Esterline and H. Farach and J. E. Fast and N. Fields and P. Finnerty and B. Fujikawa and E. Fuller and V. M. Gehman and G. K. Giovanetti and V. E. Guiseppe and K. Gusey and A. L. Hallin and G. C Harper and R. Hazama and R. Henning and A. Hime and E. W. Hoppe and T. W. Hossbach and M. A. Howe and R. A. Johnson and K. J. Keeter and M. Keillor and C. Keller and J. D. Kephart and M. F. Kidd and A. Knecht and O. Kochetov and S. I. Konovalov and R. T. Kouzes and L. Leviner and J. C. Loach and P. N. Luke and S. MacMullin and M. G. Marino and R. D. Martin and D. -M. Mei and H. S. Miley and M. L. Miller and L. Mizouni and A. W. Meyers and M. Nomachi and J. L. Orrell and D. Peterson and D. G. Phillips and A. W. P. Poon and G. Prior and J. Qian and D. C. Radford and K. Rielage and R. G. H. Robertson and L. Rodriguez and K. P. Rykaczewski and H. Salazar and A. G. Schubert and T. Shima and M. Shirchenko and D. Steele and J. Strain and G. Swift and K. Thomas and V. Timkin and W. Tornow and T. D. Van Wechel and I. Vanyushin and R. L. Varner and K. Vetter and J. F. Wilkerson and B. A. Wolfe and W. Xiang and E. Yakushev and H. Yaver and A. R. Young and C. -H. Yu and V. Yumatov and C. Zhang and S. Zimmerman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.3231},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
Submitted to NIMA Proceedings, SORMA XII. 9 pages, 4 figures