English

Calculation and comparison of sensitivities in $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiments based on key parameters

Nuclear Experiment 2025-09-30 v2 High Energy Physics - Experiment Instrumentation and Detectors

Abstract

Worldwide efforts are underway to detect neutrinoless double beta (0νββ0\nu\beta\beta) decay using experiments based on various technologies and target isotopes. Future experiments in this regard aim to exclude the inverted order (IO) condition or explore the normal order (NO) band. Consequently, comparing the sensitivities of proposed 0νββ0\nu\beta\beta decay experiments with promising prospects is essential. The current study adopts sensitivity metrics, including exclusion and discovery sensitivities, half-life sensitivities, and mββm_{\beta\beta} sensitivities, to provide a comprehensive evaluation of ten typical promising experiments: LEGEND, CDEX, nEXO, XLZD, PandaX, NEXT, KamLAND-Zen, JUNO, SNO+, and CUPID, and highlight their unique features. Based on reported experimental parameters, the concept of a ``technical line'' is introduced to determine the location that each experiment may realize in the ξ\xi and λb\lambda_{b} space, where ξ\xi represents the sensitive exposure per year, and λb\lambda_{b} denotes the expected annual rate of background events. Half-life sensitivities for the selected experiments are calculated, some of them in multiple phases and others in conservative or aggressive condition. The results indicate that increasing the operation time is more beneficial for zero-background experiments, which also demonstrate greater competitiveness in discovery sensitivity. mββm_{\beta\beta} sensitivities are presented as uncertainty bands arising from the nuclear matrix element uncertainties. Additionally, half-life and mββm_{\beta\beta} sensitivities are estimated under ideal conditions also in the form of uncertainty bands, where only irreducible 2νββ2\nu\beta\beta and solar B-8 neutrino induced background remain.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.03548,
  title  = {Calculation and comparison of sensitivities in $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiments based on key parameters},
  author = {X. Yu and L. T. Yang and Q. Yue and H. Ma and H. T. Wong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.03548},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

14 pages, 7 figures. Version updated to match PRD version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:47:01.493Z