2015/11/30 by NEXT Collaboration, J. Martín-Albo, J. Muñoz Vidal +60 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.ins-det #hep-ex #nucl-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep05(2016)159
published as JHEP 1605 (2016) 159 · Accepted for publication in the Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP)
arxiv created 2016/05/31 · arxiv updated 2016/06/01
NEXT-100 is an electroluminescent high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta (ββ0 ν) decay of Xe-136. The detector possesses two features of great value for ββ0 ν searches: energy resolution better than 1% FWHM at the Q value of Xe-136 and track reconstruction for the discrimination of signal and background events. This combination results in excellent sensitivity, as discussed in this paper. Material-screening measurements and a detailed Monte Carlo detector simulation predict a background rate for NEXT-100 of at most 4×10-4 counts keV-1 kg-1 yr-1. Accordingly, the detector will reach a sensitivity to the \bbonu-decay half-life of 2.8×1025 years (90% CL) for an exposure of 100 kg\cdotyear, or 6.0×1025 years after a run of 3 effective years.