Search for Majorana Neutrinos Near the Inverted Mass Hierarchy Region with KamLAND-Zen

2016/08/16 by A. Gando, Y. Gando, Takahiko Hachiya +38 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

paper · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.117.082503

openalex publication_date 2016/08/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We present an improved search for neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of ¹³⁶Xe in the KamLAND-Zen experiment. Owing to purification of the xenon-loaded liquid scintillator, we achieved a significant reduction of the ^110mAg contaminant identified in previous searches. Combining the results from the first and second phase, we obtain a lower limit for the 0νββ decay half-life of T_1/2^0ν>1.07×10²⁶ yr at 90% C.L., an almost sixfold improvement over previous limits. Using commonly adopted nuclear matrix element calculations, the corresponding upper limits on the effective Majorana neutrino mass are in the range 61-165 meV. For the most optimistic nuclear matrix elements, this limit reaches the bottom of the quasidegenerate neutrino mass region.

Citations

• Results of the search for neutrinoless double-βdecay inMo<mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/>100with the NEMO-3 experiment
• Search for Majorana neutrinos with the first two years of EXO-200 data
• Geant4 developments and applications
• Reactor on-off antineutrino measurement with KamLAND
• Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay ofTe<mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/>130with CUORE-0

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